Irreproachable Honourableness

Children should bury their parents…

2011-11-10T18:42:00.001-05:00

… and not the other way around.

Tonight is a memorial service for the son of some friends of ours. It makes me long for these days, yet to come;

Isaiah 65:19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. … The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD. (ESV - from CadreBible)

The corner remains empty, for good reasons

2011-10-24T14:20:00.001-04:00

In Saying good-bye I wrote about saying good-bye to our friend Toby, who filled that corner in the photograph for many years (or a nearby corner in the dining room). In Saying Hello I wrote of Tessa, who came to fill that corner.

Bailey (front) and Tessa wait for dinner after a hard day's play.

Well, that corner continues empty, for good cause: Tessa and Bailey are far more sociable (and perhaps far more socialized) than Toby, and much prefer to stay within sight of one or both of us. Dinner finds them near us (and, yes, near the table: occasionally under the table), and while we prepare dinner, they lie nearby, too. (Tessa's sister Aubrey does the same, says our vet, who owns Aubrey.) We've had to do a bit more training around proper dinnertime behavior, but it's nice to have the company.
Ron

Saying hello

2011-05-02T14:18:00.001-04:00

Well, the empty corner was hard to leave empty. This little girl or a sister will come live with us in four weeks or so.

Ron

Saying good-bye

2011-04-28T18:54:00.001-04:00

We say goodbye tonight to a good friend who's been part of our lives for 14 years. (He turned 14 last week, and I believe we put a deposit down when his litter was a week old.) His breathing comes hard, now, and though he shows no signs, I'm sure walking is agony for him. It's second nature, though: I figure we've walked around 10,000 miles together.

Goodbye, old friend. I'll miss you, even though your little sister is here to lighten our days.

Exhilaration

2011-04-12T08:02:00.001-04:00

The source of the exhilaration associated with computer programming is the continual unfolding within the mind and on the computer of mechanisms expressed as programs and the explosion of perception they generate. If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!

From SICP, front matter somewhere

Hudson CI and MDNS

2010-10-07T14:24:00.002-04:00

Just a technical note: ignore this if you aren't a geek.

I was doing some network monitoring at work, and there were two surprisingly talkative computers. One was a consultant's laptop: he was downloading the latest software for our servers, and then copying it out to our servers, so maybe 10 billion bytes of data over lunch wasn't that big a deal.

The other was my Linux workstation, which was spewing megabytes of UDP messages into the network. When I looked at what it was broadcasting, I found it was firing off ten or twelve MDNS packets every second, announcing itself to the world. I couldn't figure out why it was doing this, nor what software was issuing the messages. Finally, by using the command (as root)

lsof -i udp:5353

I was able to see that the Hudson Continuous Integration system was firing off these packets. I assume it uses these to identify other Hudson servers, but hundreds of these messages a minute seemed over the top. I've disabled Hudson for now, and will look into it later.

Updated 11-Oct-2010: A fix!

jdsn pointed me to information about a system property that shuts the MDNS broadcasts off, and I've now silenced the noise with his help. (See the comments for details.) Thanks, jdsn!

Ron

On Guidebooks

2010-10-04T13:09:00.001-04:00

I was looking up some information on the organizations that Judi bought her goods from—organizations that provide work at a fair wage for the poor and disabled, with training and marketing of their products—and found this post about the Lonely Planet travel guides on Flickr (actually, the photo was from a mashup page on another site).

What got me was the trouble the travellers ran into because they had the very latest edition of the travel guide:

We acquired what we thought was the latest Lonely Planet guide to India in a book swap in Singapore, but we found a 'September 2009' edition in a bookshop in Hong Kong airport on 5th August (clearly the Lonely Planet are trying to extend the shelf life of their editions). We snapped this up and its freshness of information meant it was very useful for accommodation booking. In general its information was accurate and pricing up-to-date. Prices were given in local currency, not US Dollars, which is an improvement over other Lonely Planets we've used.

There was, however, a problem. The anticipation of a new release of the Lonely Planet reaches fever pitch on the actual date of publication and we were unfortunate enough to be the only people in the town of Jaisalmer (perhaps the whole of Rajasthan) to have the new book. It was spotted by our hotel who told the whole town. Soon we were being hassled in the street by gangs of touts who wanted to see who was in and who was out, presumably so they could rip tourists off accordingly. Some came into out hotel and were knocking on other people's doors trying to find the book. We even received a late night knock on the door from the hotel proprietors because a crowd of fifty people had gathered outside and wanted to see it. At this point, the whole thing had gone too far and we didn't get the book out in public again.

Travel can be so much fun!

Make Way for Linux

2010-09-30T11:11:00.001-04:00

We got an HP netbook that was running Windows 7. I wanted to dual-boot Linux (openSuSE 11.3) on it, but all four primary partitions were already used on the disk, consuming the whole disk.

A utility partition of some sort.
Windows 7 (huge)
A system restore/recovery partition
HP_TOOLS partition.

In order to free this up, I had to shuffle data around like one of those 4x4 puzzles with 15 numbered squares.

Steps taken:

Make a Parted Magic CD.
Boot from the CD.
Run GParted and note down some partition information. In particular, how big (and what format) is the last one, if you have four partitions.
Use Clonezilla to backup the whole disk. (I used an ssh connection to another laptop.)
Use Partition Image to make a backup of the HP_TOOLS partition (the last one).
Use GParted to

shrink the Windows 7 partition.
delete the HP_TOOLS partition;
create an extended partition in its place;
create a 2GB unformatted partition for swap (but do not format it);
create a 20GB ext4 partition for the system;
create the right size partition for the HP_TOOLS partition to live in.
create a /home partition from the rest of the disk.

Back to Partition Image and restore the HP_TOOLS partition.
Boot Windows and change the drive mappings (apparently it sees the C drive, then the HP_TOOLS in the extended partition becomes D:, then the next primary partition becomes E:) so the second primary partition is regarded as D: and the HP_TOOLS partition is E:.
Eventually install openSuSE 11.3 in the space provided in the extended partition.

Wow!

2010-09-12T03:41:00.001-04:00

In our room in the Landour Community Hospital, the toilet seat glows in the dark! (Sorry, no photo.)

Momentary

2010-09-01T07:19:00.001-04:00

I wish I could have captured it, but only my memory holds the picture. A few mornings ago, Bailey (our coal-black puppy) was out in the yard, her nose buried in the grass. I stepped out to rescue the lawn from another hole, and found that she was following a brilliant white moth in the grass. "Leave it!" She paused, and it climbed on her nose, brilliant against the dark.

Then it stepped off into the grass, and I picked it up and put it on the gate, out of reach. Momentary glories, lasting beauty, if only in the memory.

What!? You think programming isn't exciting?

2009-11-11T07:42:00.000-05:00

I was reading Wikipedia's article on Tom Swift, the fictional inventor who entertained three generations of (usually) boys from the early 20th century to the beginning of the 21st—and all without seriously instructing them in anything of value—when I came upon this statement (emphasis mine):

Tom Swift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Commentator Bill Virgin contends that, with the advent of computers, Tom Swift is no longer a relevant figure. A boy genius might be able to tinker with a motorcycle, but he is 'not likely to be running a biotech or nanotech lab in his garage. Meanwhile, the great engine of entrepreneurial activity these days is in software and website development, an occupation that (no offense meant to its practitioners) doesn't make for terribly lively fiction."

I am, needless to say, deeply offended and hurt.

Light reading: The Use of Tagmemic Theory in Composition Teaching

2009-10-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

Provocative question from my current reading:

CHAPTER THREE: The Use of Tagmemic Theory in Composition Teaching: "What if human consciousness is not designed to be a passive receptor of pre-packaged information? What if the education process as described not only does not utilize, but actually handicaps and stunts the manifestation of the basic human impulse to 'resolve disequilibriums?' It is often observed that children seem to be more alive to the world, more curious, more interested, etc., than adults. What if, say, this lively inquisitiveness on children's part was a manifestation of this inquiring, 'problem- solving' activity? A good case could easily be made that this process is eventually drained and eroded out of the child by the 'education' he/she endures during the twelve years of public schooling."

Visiting a broken place

2009-10-13T08:01:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning I had my pre-admission testing at Fox Chase Cancer Center. This involves many things: granting blood and tissue samples to their "biosample" repository (optional at no extra cost), chest X-rays, blood tests, and some education in post-surgical living.

Fox Chase is not a happy place: there are no (or few) children, there are no families anticipating arrival of a newborn. "Good news" at FCCC is "I don't have to come back for several months," but still coming back, still sitting with numbed expressions and empty eyes. There is self-recrimination: "I've smoked for 30 years, but she's the one with bladder cancer."

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. (Jer 16:9)

It is a taste, a concentration of the sorrows of a broken world, hidden away so the rest of us can forget that the world is under a curse, while we play and work and sleep, living in a dream even as we play and work.

Christ entered a broken world like this. He left a place that was truly perfect, not an illusion, and he gave it all up out of love for the Father and love for his hurting and dying people. He entered a world of suffering and pain, where "all birth was but a prelude unto death, and every cradle swung above a grave." (Calvin Miller, The Singer) There he suffered fear, pain, humiliation, and loss, that he might bring glory to his Father, so that having been made perfect in suffering, he would not be ashamed of his suffering people, he would be a sympathetic high priest, knowing our weakness and frailty and temptations.

It is only in finding meaning in his suffering (and exaltation!) that I can walk this path. For me, the paths of righteousness he leads me in are going to go through a valley of the shadow of death. Next Tuesday I lie down on a table whole and rise later that day wounded. I hope to heal from those wounds, but the way is still dark and humbling and full of fears.

Yet the one I follow is the light of the world, and he says that in following him I have the light of life. The shadow of death is no match for the light of life: I follow in fear, but in trust.

When Helping Hurts: new book published

2009-07-17T16:40:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, New Life Glenside hosted a seminar from the Chalmers Center for Economic Development on how churches can help the poor. The seminar focused particularly on how easy it is to hurt the poor by helping them unwisely. The seminar changed my thoughts on missions and diaconal work, but it was hard to share that concisely.

Now it is easier: Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert of the Chalmers Center have published When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and yourself (Moody Press, 2009). When Helping Hurts contains the seminar material for individual reading or group studies (there are group exercises).

I'm looking forward to getting into this material again, this time with a larger community. I've recommended it to many contacts on Facebook as well as to the other elders at my church.

CancerGuide: The Median Isn't the Message

2009-06-09T10:59:00.001-04:00

Evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould on proper interpretation of statistics, especially where that affects one's attitude toward living and fighting for life:

This is a personal story of statistics, properly interpreted, as profoundly nurturant and life-giving. It declares holy war on the downgrading of intellect by telling a small story about the utility of dry, academic knowledge about science. Heart and head are focal points of one body, one personality.

CancerGuide: The Median Isn't the Message (Also at Edward Tufte's site.)

Incidentally, I found this while studying material on visual presentation of data.

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Doctor just called: all clear

2009-06-06T16:44:00.001-04:00

The doctor just called, days before I expected to hear any news.

Usually not a good sign, this time it was: my CAT scan was clear. The cancer has not spread anywhere.

Prayers of praise and thanks welcome. Thank you all who have prayed for me and us in this (don't stop).

Whew!

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CATs and Dogs

2009-06-06T07:34:00.002-04:00

CAT scan went as planned: nothing unusual, but results will be a few days. Of course, this is part of the frequent waiting that Dan Macha wrote about.

8:20: Arrive at Imaging center (or whatever it’s called)
8:30: Tech comes out with two bottles of white stuff with straws, 450 ml each. Barium sulfate, opacifying stuff for the GI system. She gives me a schedule: I should start the first one now, and the second no later than 9:30 am.
8:45: I’m nauseous, having essentially chugged much of the first bottle. Well, I was thirsty. Bad move.
9:15: I slowly sip the end of the first bottle. Straw really too short for the bottle.
9:30: Start the next bottle. Sip until 10:00 or so. Bleah.
10:06: Put computer away, wait to be called.
10:30: Called into the back room to a lounge near the CAT scan.
10:32: Intrude on a conversation between two staffers about a fabulous book series, now a movie. Oh, Twilight. I see.
10:35: Into the CAT scan room, empty pockets onto chair, lie down under sheet, discretely slide pants to my knees under sheet. Opacifying IV attached to me.
10:36: Discuss with tech–dog-training; studies in physiology and neurochemistry at college; animal behaviorists in the Philadelphia area; possible reasons for her rescued dog’s response to her husband.
10:40: Machine does a first scan of my torso w/o Opacifying stuff.
10:42: IV begins to flow: slight warmth in ears and throat region, a tingle. Machine does two or three more scans. I mutter the first few stanzas of St. Patrick’s Breastplate to myself, wondering if the IV or barium or distraction is making me stumble over parts of it.
10:46: Discuss Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty with tech, suggest it as excellent day-trip for kids this summer (but use the NJ ferry at Liberty State Park). (Ah, yes: return pants to ordinary position before leaving the sheet.)
10:50: I’m out of the CAT room, waiting behind another CAT scan patient (I saw her earlier with her barium bottles, and toasted her with mine) for the single restroom provided for the waiting inbound (and outbound) patients. I’ve had 3 oz of coffee, a piece of toast, a quart of latex wall paint masquerading as barium solution, and who knows how much IV poured into me since dawn.
10:58: I’m on the road to nearby friends’ house, having chatted amiably but with growing intensity of purpose while waiting for someone in the single restroom, and decided a 3-mile drive would be quicker.
11:20 or so: Having dealt with certain indelicate necessities: sit with surprised and dismayed friend, have a slice of homemade banana-nut bread, discuss sheet music and classy guitar chord fingerings, examine hand engraving work friend is teaching himself (he’s a jeweler), and make my way to the door.
11:49: Boot up the laptop at work, and continue another day of bit-twiddling.

So, yes, it went pretty much as planned, I guess.

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drew olanoff dot com. - That's not what I ordered...

2009-06-04T16:03:00.001-04:00

I think I like this guy's attitude (and boy does he have an attitude).

The following is a quotation from his site!

I have Cancer.

Before I was staged, I spoke with a friend of mine about it and shared an idea I had for a site called BlameDrewsCancer. See, I am trying to stay lighthearted and optimistic that since studies show that Hodgkins Lymphoma is 90% curable…I should do SOMETHING.

I’ve been blaming my cancer for everything. Lost keys, wallet, Phillies losing. Sixers picking a bad coach. Twitter going down and/or being slow.

Surely cancer can’t withstand that type of beatdown. But why do it alone? I wanted to welcome ANYONE to blame ANYTHING on MY cancer. I’ll find a nice company or a few who will match each unique person on Twitter who blames something on my cancer using the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer, with a dollar that will go to the American Cancer Society and Make a Wish Foundation.

My life is changed forever.

I have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me.

drew olanoff dot com. - That's not what I ordered...
So get out there and twitter for the blamer's sake!

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drew olanoff dot com. - That's not what I ordered...

2009-06-04T16:01:00.001-04:00

I think I like this guy's attitude (and boy does he have an attitude).

The following is a quotation from his site!

I have Cancer.

Before I was staged, I spoke with a friend of mine about it and shared an idea I had for a site called BlameDrewsCancer. See, I am trying to stay lighthearted and optimistic that since studies show that Hodgkins Lymphoma is 90% curable…I should do SOMETHING.

I’ve been blaming my cancer for everything. Lost keys, wallet, Phillies losing. Sixers picking a bad coach. Twitter going down and/or being slow.

Surely cancer can’t withstand that type of beatdown. But why do it alone? I wanted to welcome ANYONE to blame ANYTHING on MY cancer. I’ll find a nice company or a few who will match each unique person on Twitter who blames something on my cancer using the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer, with a dollar that will go to the American Cancer Society and Make a Wish Foundation.

My life is changed forever.

I have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me.

drew olanoff dot com. - That's not what I ordered...
So get out there and twitter for the blamer's sake!

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Is there really a resemblance?

2009-06-01T13:22:00.002-04:00

A friend down the street posted a photo on FaceBook last November, noting that this was Bodhidharma—Patriarch of Zen in China—or is it that guy up the street finally with his hat off? Well, since I am the only guy up the street with a hat, this attracted my attention. There are a number of images of Bodhidharma out there, and I am not particularly flattered by the comparison, but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when he wrote,

Okay Ron.... C'mon.... put some glasses and a hat on him and he could be your twin.

So, I ask you: does this really look like me?

New paths through unknown territory

2009-05-28T07:33:00.003-04:00

Tuesday morning I received news I did not want, and yet was thankful for: of twelve samples in a biopsy, one showed “abnormalities”—at least we caught it early in that one sample. I am now headed down roads that take me into (and it is to be hoped through) prostate cancer treatment.

Yes, this is a slow-moving, slow-growing, non-aggressive cancer: “indolent” was the term one doctor applied to it—lazy. (Curiously, the word “lusk” as an archaic adjective means the same thing: the parasite has the characteristics of the host.) Yes, there are a number of treatment choices, including doing nothing but watching: “More men die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer.”

Yet as friends have shown me, even waiting is painful: the Unwelcome Visitor waits with you, the Unknown waits for you, the Unwanted lurks—the archaic meaning of “lusk” as a verb—about you: tests, invasions, intrusions.

The actions of God are unknowable, too. The character of God is all we have to cling to: He loves, he is kind, he intends good in all these things, even if one of the goods is finding joy in Him as we are stripped of joy in lesser things.

By God's grace, we will cling to the knowledge of His character in the mystery of His actions. The paths go where we've not gone before, and we need—and have—a good Friend and Guide beside me. Come walk with us, too.

Importing certificates from openssl into IBM's CMS files using IKEYMAN

2009-04-07T17:05:00.002-04:00

For my non-geek friends, time to move along, nothing to see here.

OK, here's the problem I just solved. We wanted a wildcard server certificate, and since we were deploying it on at least four different server systems, we didn't know where to generate the key-pair and the certificate signing request (CSR). The instructions from our signing source did not really work for our server systems, so I generated the key-pair and CSR using openssl on my laptop.

We did the appropriate submission of the CSR and approval of the request, and got back an e-mail with a link to download the wildcard certificate and supporting files. The format of the certificate and the supporting files vary depending on the system you plan to put the key into. The supporting files provide a chain of authority (might be the wrong term) from the issuer's root certificate down to the actual server certificate (which prevents some form of attacks on the root certificate).

We downloaded the certificate and support bundle in Apache format first. It took about two minutes to install it on my workstation installation of Apache, and it started accepting https URLs almost immediately.

We also clicked the link and downloaded the files in "IIS v6.0" format. But nearly every other service except good old openssl and Apache expect to generate the request for you and process the returned certificate, while holding onto the keys. Actually forcing an "alien" certificate/key collection upon these systems is not always documented very well.

I looked at our IBM HTTP Server configuration, but they had replaced the Apache mod_ssl with an IBM-specific module, so I moved on to IIS, expecting to get this done quickly.

Loading an alien certificate into IIS v6.0

First, use the MMC tool with the Certificates add-in to load the intermediate certificates into the Local Computer's folder for Intermediate Certification Authorities. No problem.

Next, open up the Properties for the website in the Internet Services Manager, and eventually find your way to the Certificate Wizard, and Hey presto!, your..... What? There's no neatly-documented way to import an existing certificate and key into the system: it expects to be in control, and to generate a certificate-signing request for you.

After a little research, I found that the option for importing a certificate and key (about third or fourth option) would work, if I exported the certificate and key in PKCS#12 format:


openssl pkcs12 -export 
  -inkey my-key.key \
  -in my-cert.crt  \
  -out cert-and-key.p12 \
  -clcerts \
  -name "Server Certificate" \
  -certfile ../intermediate_bundle.crt

This prompts you for the input and output passwords, by the way. It generates a file that only contains the server certificate, but verifies it against the intermediate authorities (apparently). You can then import cert-and-key.p12 into IIS. This only took me two or three hours to figure out.

Fighting with IBM's IKEYMAN

For the IBM HTTP Server, it's a much rougher battle—or it was for me: your mileage may vary. The IHS uses mod_ibm_ssl instead of the Apache mod_ssl, and the IBM code uses a different file format for certificates, a file format used only by IBM (apparently). [Ominous bassoon motif plays.] This file is manipulated by a program called IKEYMAN, which is a Java GUI that can manage standard Java keystores, IBM's custom CMS files, and several others. With each release (there are at least three releases on our test system), IKEYMAN adds more file formats it knows about, so it seems up-to-date and with-it.

Don't be fooled. I spent at least eight hours trying every way of generating a PKCS#12 format file that would work. I always got a message The specified database has been corrupted. Does this mean that the keystore has been corrupted? That the PKCS12 file has been corrupted? It won't say.

It did happily add the intermediate certificates as acceptable "Signing Keys". One can be thankful for small blessings.

On the web, all the references to this message and IKEYMAN suggest (1) making sure that you are typing the password correctly; and (2) replacing some security-related Java JAR files with the latest versions. Note how this implies that you are then getting a very up-to-date system by doing so. I replaced those files in several directories, and it did let the standard Java keytool program read my PKCS12 files that it couldn't before, but it had no visible effect on IKEYMAN.

Finally, I wrote a script to use every combination of openssl pkcs12 output options that made sense. At the last, at the bottom of the man page for the PKCS12 subcommand, there was a note:

The -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise encryption
algorithms for private keys and certificates to be specified. Normally
the defaults are fine but occasionally software can't handle triple DES
encrypted private keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40 can be used to reduce the private key encryption to 40 bit RC2.

This was the key to it all: dropping back from an advanced encryption algorithm to something less-secure, suitable for international export under (older?) regulations. I used the command


openssl pkcs12 -export \
  -inkey  my-key.key \
  -in my-cert.crt \
  -out cert-and-key.p12 \
  -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40

and IKEYMAN could understand it, and I could continue securing our systems.

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Action mapping: Fast, visual instructional design for elearning » Making Change

2009-03-12T07:19:00.001-04:00

Quick! Design some elearning that has compelling activities and a real business impact!

How? Try action mapping.

I’ve been using a quick, visual process to design projects. I call it action mapping because it helps you change what people do, not just what they know. It helps you design action-packed materials that are 100% dedicated to improving business performance, and it can keep stakeholders from adding extraneous information.

Action mapping: Fast, visual instructional design for elearning » Making Change

Even if the material doesn't interest you, the presentation should: this is the most instructive, interesting, and involving presentation I've seen. Nearly as enjoyable as a viral marketing video, and yet helpful.

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Arguing on the Web: Cohere

2009-03-07T18:37:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure how the following will display [Hmmmm…I see…well, try the page itself—is that better?]: this is a piece of web-based "argument" I'm following/constructing using the Cohere web-application that allows…what? "Visualization of argumentation"? "Collection of pros and cons in a visual way"? Not sure how to put it, so better see for yourself.

2008-12-16T13:26:00.001-05:00

Weblogging with Emacs

Using weblogger.el (see the original article I read for details) from Emacs. This is really only a test.

Update: this is a lose, sort of... no title. not sure whether I can use HTML in the editor. Another time.

Later update: Less of a lose: with HTML, apparently, and a
<title> tag or two, one can actually do what needs to be done.

Even later update: Back to being something of a lose: with Blogger, at least, a <title> tag does not seem to have any effect.

Enjoyment of Fear and Hitchcock

2008-09-18T07:42:00.001-04:00

The director [Alfred Hitchcock] identified two distinct kinds of fear: suspense and terror. Suspense is the prolonged feeling of anxiety that accompanies a sense of impending doom, whereas terror is a sudden feeling of fear. To illustrate these two types of fear, he pointed to the two kinds of explosives used during World War II -- the suspense-provoking buzz bomb and the terror-inducing V-2.

"The moments between the time the [buzz bomb's] motor was first heard and the final explosion were moments of suspense. The V-2, on the other hand, was noiseless until its moment of explosion. Anyone who heard a V-2 explode, and lived, experienced terror…. On the screen, terror is induced by surprise; suspense, by forewarning."

Anvil - A free ezine and newsletter providing informative and entertaining insights into today's Internet society

While looking for something else (of course), I found this helpful distinction (and article).

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On a roll: Students help bring mobility to developing countries - MIT News Office

2008-05-31T12:34:00.001-04:00

Throughout the developing world, 20 million people need wheelchairs but are unable to get them. And even the lucky ones who do get them--usually through charitable donations--often get chairs designed for the smooth floors and sidewalks of the industrialized world, which can be difficult or even impossible to use on the unpaved roads and narrow hallways that people often face.
Amos Winter, an MIT graduate student in mechanical engineering, has spent much of the last three years trying to address these problems by working with wheelchair workshops in various countries in Africa and Asia to help develop new designs. His focus has been on chairs that work better under the rough conditions they face in each location, that can be made locally with readily available materials and by local workers, and that are rugged enough to stand up to the rough roads, gear-clogging dust and wet and muddy conditions they often face.

On a roll: Students help bring mobility to developing countries - MIT News Office

At WEC International, an organization near me, I met a man who with his family was helping to build wheelchairs for the disabled in Africa. I've also seen (or seen photos of) inexpensive wheelchairs in India. This is a bigger opportunity than most of us in the US can comprehend.

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Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage

2008-05-10T18:22:00.001-04:00

At Pacific Coast Brewing here, brewer Donald Gortemiller is reworking his recipes and altering his brewing styles like never before.

Gortemiller isn't acting on a spurt of creativity. He's coping with a worldwide shortage of hops -- the spice of beer. The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers.

Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage

These are dark days. We have had a Golden Age. A friend and I were recalling how, growing up, a premium beer was…Michelob? Yes, and Coors, too (for those of us in the West). One of our twenty-something friends has grown up in this Golden Age, and perhaps—too soon—it will be snatched from him. A hop shortage. On top of all other economic news, this takes the cake.

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Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage

2008-05-10T18:21:00.001-04:00

At Pacific Coast Brewing here, brewer Donald Gortemiller is reworking his recipes and altering his brewing styles like never before.

Gortemiller isn't acting on a spurt of creativity. He's coping with a worldwide shortage of hops -- the spice of beer. The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers.

Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage

2008-03-08T18:00:00.001-05:00

A sample of what I hope to do with our India trip log.

Sugandh children at play

2008-02-17T22:59:00.001-05:00

These are kids from extreme poverty, celebrating a few minutes of freedom from classes in a school set up to help them escape from that poverty. They live in the neighborhood shown below (click for more).

2008-02-10T20:46:00.000-05:00

So, you want to drive in India? Well, if you are so unfortunate as to have a car encumbered by mirrors, remember the only thing they do is make the car wider. Rip them off, or at the least, fold them up so you can drive properly.

Of those cars that have mirrors, nearly all are flipped up most of the time. I even got nailed by one that some laggard had left sticking out: maybe he had hung something to dry on it and forgotten, I don't know....

2/4/08: Chaaya Cafe

2008-02-10T09:39:00.001-05:00

2/4/08: Chaaya Cafe
Originally uploaded by lusk water

Inside Chaaya Cafe, Dehradun, there is great food. In the back, is a garden
with an incredible view of the mountains, and some quiet spots as well.

2/4/08: Dehradun

2008-02-10T09:35:00.001-05:00

2/4/08: Dehradun
Originally uploaded by lusk water

The next day, in Dehradun, we visited Dorcas Place and Chayya Cafe, the home
of Himalayan Tapestries (
http://www.himalayantapestries.com/). Outside, this sadhu was walking past.

2008-02-10T09:27:00.003-05:00

2/3/08: The Road North
Originally uploaded by lusk water

Never before have I traveled roads so thoroughly populated. There was no place where we were the only car--car? herd of cows, tractor-towed wagon full of weary women like so many sacks of wheat, motorcycle, truck, ox-cart--there was always some vehicle near us to dodge around.

And mostly, the roadsides were populated, thinly, with the look of a long line of southwest US auto shops: homes open to the air like garages, made of bricks with unfinished edges (why chop the bricks in half? the jutting ends leave a ready-made ladder to the roof!).

2008-02-10T09:27:00.001-05:00

2/3/08: The Road North
Originally uploaded by lusk water

Yes, six hours: we drove up along the Upper Ganga Canal for 36 miles, traveling along a road that seemed little more than a bicycle path with an advanced degree. From there we took a bypass around Muzaffarnagar, up to Roorkee, and then up to Dehradun. Names that mean little to me, less to you (unless you are from India), but that represent a few million people, not just in these cities, but between them.

Flashback: 2/1/08

2008-02-10T09:21:00.001-05:00

Flashback: 2/1/08
Originally uploaded by lusk water

When we arrived, e-mail was the first consideration for some of us. Mike
had a lot, so one of my last waking memories was Mike in the light of his
Mac.

Delhi traffic flashback, 2/2/08

2008-02-10T09:11:00.001-05:00

Delhi traffic flashback, 2/2/08
Originally uploaded by lusk water

Just a note on travel in Delhi: it's usually by
auto-rickshaw.
These clean-running (natural gas for power in all the public
transit)
little golf-carts spin back and forth around all the streets. The
Lieutenant Governor of Delhi recently said that drivers in this area take
pride in violating the
law.
That may be, but the drivers might well take pride in how close they can
come to neighboring vehicles.

Here we see a clear shot of the "dashboard icons" of the neighboring
auto-rickshaw. I believe at this point we've actually stopped in traffic,
but that doesn't really mean we're closer than when blazing along at 15 or
25 miles per hour (or much closer, at least).

Leaving for Dehradun, 2/3/08

2008-02-10T08:56:00.001-05:00

Leaving for Dehradun, 2/3/08
Originally uploaded by lusk water

A week ago Terry preached here at Delhi Bible Institute at the morning
service. We prayed together one last time, and the team split into its
teamlets.

Our driver, Harbit "Happy" Singh came to the door, removed his shoes, and
carefully climbed to the roof of his--well, sort of microvan--and spread a
plastic tarp over the roof rack. He then bundled in our luggage for the trip
north to Dehradun. It was to be a short trip: only 125 miles or so, by the
map (as it was, we drove about 200 miles to get there: the maps don't show
windy roads, and we took some short-cuts). An easy six-hour ride.

2008-02-10T08:40:00.003-05:00

More on Old Delhi
Originally uploaded by lusk water

I forgot to attach a photo. At one point, an alley I chose (in order to escape the crush of bicycle rickshaws) dead-ended in a fabric shop.

"Chandni Chowk?" I asked, looking hopeful and lost. The shopman directed us to an iron gate, chained half-closed to a two-foot opening
(keeps rickshaws out, I suppose).

Beyond, two giant steps led down to another alley, with a right-angle turn at the end. We followed, and eventually found ourselves out on Chandni Chowk again, heading for the Red Fort.

2008-02-03T01:55:00.000-05:00

We leave in an hour or so for the North. Yesterday, Judi, Mike, and I wandered through the alleys of Old Delhi. It should say enough that we escaped with bicycle grease on our trousers from squeezing through the crowded alleys past bicycle-rickshaws and motorcycles.

Purana Qila over New Delhi

2008-02-02T12:45:00.001-05:00

Purana Qila over New Delhi
Originally uploaded by lusk water

The oldest part of Delhi: near the *Mahabharata* city (well, village) of
Indraprastha stands the Purana Qila, a late Mughal fortress built by Emperor
Humayun in the late 1500's. The ruins dominate some parts of New Delhi.
Indraprastha, the first of the many cities that are Delhi, itself is 2500
years older than this fortress.

I walked past this giant around noon on Saturday, having spent the morning
working on Delhi Bible Institute's booth at the World Book Fair here in
Delhi. DBI was less than two miles away from the fair: I walked through
streams of cars, bicycles, rickshaws, etc., past cows, beggars, mules, and
monuments.

Selling Bread

2008-02-01T11:54:00.001-05:00

Selling Bread
Originally uploaded by lusk water

The bread seller carries under his arm a two-sided drum which makes noise as
he spins the stick that holds it. How else could he be heard over the cries
of the vegetable seller, the horns of the cars and motorcycles and
rickshaws, and the howls of the stray dogs?

--
Ron Lusk
ronlusk@alum.mit.edu

2008-01-31T23:28:00.000-05:00

Quick post: we're here in Delhi. Good flight, good sleep.

Have mercy, O God,
On those who always sleep in
This cold. Have mercy.

2008-01-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

नमस्ते: (that's supposed to be Namaste, the Hindi equivalent of "Hello"). Anyway, one note for the techno-geeks: I'm taking with me a GPS Data Logger, the GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Lite. With it, I hope to do on the scale of travel around Delhi or Uttarakhand what I've done on a smaller scale with a morning walk around Wyncote. (I hope the photos are more interesting, in any case.)

We leave here in just over 24 hours.

2008-01-28T10:56:00.000-05:00

In just a little over 48 hours, we leave our town for India. "We" is my wife Judi and I, and a team from our fellowship. No, make that four teams: two headed east from Delhi, two together headed north. Judi and I will be headed together for the Himalayas, there to meet with believers and encourage them in the Good News.

I'm taking a laptop, so I should be able to keep this updated. Watch for details.

2006-07-22T10:16:00.000-04:00

This child was with his mother, watching one of our street dramas in Tembisa.