Daynotes 1999 week 12

Daynotes: Week of 22 - 28 March, 1999

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 12

* Link to: last modified 13:09 GMT+1 on 28.03.1999

Hi, welcome to this twelfth week's daybook page.

himself See the update-link (above) that points where I last added some text, which should simplify your keeping up to speed. Of course, you may still have to scroll back a bit and see if I've updated more than once since you last visited, but that is easily done.

Webpages live -- i.e. content editing may at times be performed retroactively, so that some "established" content may change (updated links, new comments, etc.) or material be moved. Any such "retro-updates" (or if I write something but for some reason upload it to the site a day or two later) will be noted in the current daynote. For any thematic articles added "on the side", see separate pages off the contents page at the previous location at www.leuf.org/articles/disisay.htm .

Mail inclusions are as a rule on a separate weekly mail page -- see Mailnotes link in sidebar. The Mailnotes link beside each weekday, below, points to the corresponding weekday in the mail page for the same week.

Monday 22.03

Another week. More tasks to whittle down, more oddities to figure out. It's a great life...

Web publishing fast;
Digital documents send,
Electrons not dry.

As we ponder the mysteries of GUID numbering in the grander scheme of things, and the imponderable of to what extent we leave an identity trail through cyberspace as we browse, or now even simply use our processors and MS-applications (possibly in realspace courtesy of our RFing monitors), perhaps one can gain some solace from the fact that realspace is still dominant, no matter how connected we seem to be...

I mentioned to Isabel in a discussion today, apropos perfectionism, that mistakes are the way of the universe. Just as total incompetence can destroy us, so can total perfectionism. We are however educated in the myth of perfect answers, be it science or politics. Each answer will on the other hand generate new questions and unforeseen consequences, and new mistakes. The key issue is how we handle the mistakes.

Any controllable, i.e. useful system, functions in that interplay between small mistakes and equally small but precise corrective measures. Take away either, and the system ceases to function. Even your so-called random mutations in DNA exist in a special domain where replication error-checking is to be sure 1000 times better than random, yet still several orders of magnitude less than that code-proofing mechanism's potential for correcting mistakes. Useful, not total control.

Tuesday 23.03

Artful web design;
Delicate tracery seen
Through rain-streaked window.

Further thoughts on perfectionism: The concept of free will is impossible in a perfect world.

I discovered to my surprise recently that MS Photo Editor 2000 can handle (prepress) CMYK coded and Apple-compressed versions of jpegs. It does not tell you anything about the format being CMYK, however, so you'd never know about it unless you were aware of the original format of image files. In addition it always resaves the images in plain-vanilla RGB format.

This last feature was helpful to me. I ran into problems early last year, when the images I received from the paper publishers of a newsletter for the Rotary Doctor Bank suddenly were in a format my usual tools couldn't touch. As I have already described this in detail on that site, I quote from there:

With issue 1, 1998, I suddenly found that none of my image tools would recognize the jpeg file formats received from the printers. Neither would these image files render in any browser I had. Issue 2 came with the same problem, and I had not gotten any information about why, or any new versions from the printers. By issue 3, I had gotten ACDSEE32, an image browser that could display the images for issues 1 and 2, but I was no closer to knowing why. Peeking at the file headers suggested a different subversion compared to the earlier files that worked ok.
By then I had purchased the Opera browser, and their technical support kindly informed me that the file formats I sent them when asking about the non-rendering were not supported by any web browser on the market. As it happens, it is not so much the subversion that is the problem, rather that the images had been saved from prepress CMYK image format.
A more detailed explanation was forwarded to me by Clark E Myers when my description of the problem was posted on Jerry Pournelle's website. He also pointed me in the direction of some good background information about using JPEG and GIF images on the web. (See also World Wide Web: Frequently Asked Questions for a collection of good FAQ and links relating to this and other issues.) Anyway, the short summary of the whole problem is:
"Adobe PhotoShop and some other prepress-oriented applications will produce four-channel CMYK JPEG files when asked to save a JPEG from CMYK image mode. Hardly anything that's not prepress-savvy will cope with CMYK JPEGs (or any other CMYK format for that matter). When making JPEGs for Web use, be sure to save from RGB or grayscale mode."
I expect the images to become available when I can convert the files to RGB format.

This last development has now taken place. Using MS Photo Editor 2000 I have been able to quickly load, crop/resize and resave the images, automatically getting web-compatible RGB format in the resulting files. Initially, I had started to use Photoshop 5, but at least the conversion method I found there was somewhat cumbersome to use for many images.

Actually, I suppose I ought to hurry with this conversion, because I have seen posted on the MS site that the PE2000 preview version will cease to function on April 15.

While on the subject of images, I have also long been on the lookout for decent snapshot programs. There are a number, of course, both free, shareware and commercial, and I have tried several. But I had totally forgotten about the built-in "Print Screen" key, or for top window "Alt + Print Screen". This saves the current screen (or window) to the system clipboard, and the resulting image can directly be pasted into application windows -- e.g. Photo Editor for cropping and other changes, then saved into the format of choice. As it turns out, this may well be the simplest route for most situations.

Wednesday 24.03

A mysterious problem pops up now and then concerning page refreshs. Over time, it has been noticed by me mostly when accessing Tom Syroid's pages, when I for longer or shorter periods only get up old versions of his Insights page, missing up to several days of newer material.

To begin with I was told this was probably because of browser settings, or I was using the Opera browser. Sometimes forcing a reload would fetch the updated version, sometimes not. At one point, it seemed that the problem was with the host server, since Tom would himself not see his own updates -- much of this is documented in his older Insight pages.

Others have periodically noted the same problem, and lately, I've seen it again, this time using IE5. Today I see the same complaint voiced in a letter posted on Bob Thompson's site, this time about Bob's page. Bob suggests a few explanations, but I think we still don't know why. I posted a follow-up letter, see mailnotes.

I have received further comments today about this viewing problem, noticeable mainly because of the frequent (daily or better) update schedule held by the "Daynote Gang" authors. Only today have I myself been able to read Tom's Monday and Tuesday updates, my reloads fetching an old Sunday version until just this evening. Very strange indeed.

Thursday 25.03

I'm not going to go into any detailed analysis of what is happening now in the Balkans, only note that I sense a sea change in Europe by the simple fact that a European military force (albeit represented largely in the form of US military might) is now actively engaging a European nation on its sovereign soil. How we may feel about this nation, and its demonstrated attitude and actions, is in this context irrelevant -- the fact remains that this step is something new in post-WWII Europe, and means an irrevocable change in this part of the world. The consequences are impossible to foresee, although some of the possibilities opened by this precedent are disquieting to say the least.

To a large extent, these moves are part of an overall ongoing process of redefining the international political landscape after the cold war (or as some would say, "after the end of the 70-year war"). The special European legacy here is that of any number of regional tensions and conflicts, "deep-frozen" under the years of Communist rule and "superpower" confrontation, which have thawed and resumed dangerous activity, laden with the additional grievances accumulated and never resolved during this century.

From the US perspective (and I am sure I will see comments of this nature on Jerry Pournelle's pages), this is yet another step towards an "imperial" USA -- perhaps inevitable given the current state of the world in general, and the world's reliance on US power projection in particular.

Nonetheless, I was concerned yesterday by what was building, and unsettled today by what has passed. Europe as a whole has entered uncharted waters (yet again) with no clear course set, and as I see it, no-one at the helm. (No, I am not especially seeking a single strong leader for Europe, just noting the current situation.)

Friday 26.03

Hmm, 2 times 13 = 26 on a Friday. Any significance in that? Anyway, it appears to be a double-Friday-the-13th for some... See mailnotes for a message from Tom Syroid, who has big problems with his computer just now, and whose site server was this morning was not serving much of anything. At least when I tried. And what little I got seemed out of date.

(Apropos dates: I do try to update my own Link-to date at the top of the page, but I realize I sometimes forget when I move the * anchor. It's a manual change and is supposed to reflect the starting point for a main update which may be different than your current date -- time difference if nothing else.)

I have also experienced by comparison minor problems, mainly with my dial-up "home" ISP, which today triggered both connect-freeze and disconnect-freeze on my system. In addition, POP-serving at the ISP was so slo-o-o-w it timed out repeatedly. Luckly, these days most significant email is routed to the leuf.net server, and that at least was delivering both fast and reliably. I spent most of yesterday moving up a lot of the older "doctorbank" pages and images, and marvelled at how fast and smoothly things were transferring -- limited only by the bandwidth of my modem.

Blank screen, yes, I wait;
Fetch web pages I request,
Server slow, time out.

Well, Tom's computer is still active, mostly. And the website refreshed normally on my last check.

I've been off the box most of the afternoon; well, actually, Therese was on a game or two during the afternoon (Friday she's off school early), and I joined her at times. Have some fun arcade style games. Other moments I followed the so-called Kosovo Crisis unfold. There are some "windows of opportunity" indicated there that I would rather remained closed for the duration. A lot of the diplomatic noise is play for the domestic galleries, but there are some very serious undercurrents to where all this may lead. BTW, when was the last time anyone was "bombed into submission"? I mean, really. As I recall recent and not-so-recent history, any so-called "successful" bombings have largely been re-evaluated in later years in light of further research indicating that any real military or strategic "success" was mostly due to other factors. Granted, we're not seeing the "terror" or blanket bombings of other conflicts, and hopefully will not. We are always told of the "surgical precision" of today's kind of bombings -- in retrospect not always all that successful, especially when the opponent uses "human shield" ploys.

For some reason, current affairs more and more read like fiction. Always a bad sign when realworld stuff begins to parallel fiction too closely -- remember the tail wags dog parallels last year?

As of now, the kids have 10 days of Easter Holidays. Pretty much most anything else closes down in practical terms too. At least after about Wednesday next week, until the following Tuesday. This country is a bit weird about public holidays and semi-holidays -- drives foreign business people a bit up the wall.

(I have previously written in more detail about Swedish holidays in the "DisISay" articles, e.g. about Easter last year.)

Saturday 27.03

Is it just me, typical Pentagon-speak, or is this some kind of pre-emptive spin control?

"We believe we have hit some troops as well, because when you attack headquarters, the quarters tend to have barracks around them, they tend to have military people around them." (spokesperson for Pentagon apropos Friday-Saturday attacks)

Yes...? You bomb something, there are bound to be people hurt or killed. You bomb military targets, you expect to hit military people. Or were they perhaps expecting more precision...

On a completely different matter, I've been thinking about how some people, when they get stressed, progressively achieve less and less the more stressed they get. I see them get stuck on detail and spin around faster and faster in an ever-decreasing spiral, getting less done and only asymptotically approaching the goal. Meanwhile time simply passes. Fascinating, in a way. Beware about trying to "hurry" such people along; you will quickly get the feeling of trying to push coins with limp-cooked spaghetti.

Sunday 28.03

Daylight savings time.

* On the subject of the "Melissa" macro-virus, I found this to be a helpful note of warning: "In Word 8, it is insufficient to look at the list of macros displayed by Tools / Macro / Macros. One must use Tools / Macro / Visual Basic Editor ..." ...and then inspect the code for suspicious text fragments or odd functionality.

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