Daynotes 1999 week 17

Daynotes: Week of 26 April - 2 May, 1999

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 17

* Link to: last modified 23:30 GMT+2 on 02.05.1999

Hi, welcome to this 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 26.04

Still mulling the ISDN option for connectivity. The bottom line became more unclear as more facts came in. The telco special offer expires 15 May, after which the installation cost doubles since the cost of the ISDN-adapter will again be charged.

(Costs ($) below: approximate equivalent in USD.)

The good...

Fast dial-up (on the order of a second, compared to modem negotiations which take typically 30 seconds or more). On the other hand, given the immediate sales goals expressed for consumer ISDN services, there is a very real risk that ISDN Internet dial-up nodes may become swamped.
No call-open charge with ISDN-data (otherwise this is about 6 cents/call) -- realistically, that may save perhaps $10 / month, plus whatever can be trimmed from call-duration charges when everything is configured as demand dial-up.
Two separate channels (data + phone) on one line. The telco selling point is that a single "DuoCom" is no more expensive than two separate analog lines.

The bad...

Telco offers single data channel only, 64 kbit/s. That's only barely double my 33k modem card (and I get pretty consistent bps here, 31-33k). I hear from several sources that PTSN-56k modems average about 30k too, rarely full speed, though theoretically such would be close to ISDN speed, apart from the dial-up latency.
My current ISP will on demand allow me to use A and B channels together for 128 kbit/s, but to enable this option will double (!) my yearly account charge.
High initial cost because of installation. Perhaps $300 (uncertain because some workman time needed). Fixed monthly charge is just under $40.
Figuring the actual cost benefits is extremely dodgy, though it seems clear that the actual ISP-calls will end up cheaper. Any decision has to be based on other factors, however.

The ugly...

The kludgy box mounted on the wall at a fixed location by the primary phone plug (here hall).
The inherent tying of the system to a single ISDN-"modem" somewhere within a few feet of "the box". Computer connection is via standard serial cable, which can of course be longer, but is still essentially "same room".
Means tying up the serial port, instead of as I had hoped my ethernet card, and pretty much mandating a single working location. With modem I can work just about anywhere.

The local electricity utility is experimenting with 1 Mbit/s (duplex?) ISP services via the power lines. I should be so lucky...

DSL is still experimental and very hush-hush when telco is asked. In addition, it seems clear that DSL will be a premium offering to business customers in only certain locations. Much like ISDN was about 10 years ago.

Feh!

I hate decisions of this nature with such inconclusive input.

Why does IE5 not recognize the Apache server as localhost? I keep getting the dialog suggesting offline work. Mystery. Opera and other browsers I have tried connect localhost or host-alias with no problems at all.

I recall some mention of IE-problems with localhost using Squeak PWS too, but can't recall exactly what.

Tuesday 27.04

My thoughts are just now very much with my co-author and Daynote friend Tom Syroid, as he drastically rearranges his life to write our book on Outlook2000. Prompted by his comment yesterday about "late, late, late" and white rabbits, I dedicate this image to him:

White Rabbit

(This is a scan of the original John Tenniel illustration of the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.)

Surprisingly, and despite the popularized Disney animation and regular new editions, not everyone will understand a passing allusion to the White Rabbit, or even the title. And many who think they do, turn out to have a very unclear grasp of it all.

I can recommend The Annotated Alice , which in a single volume (re-issued in hardcover just last year, AmazonCom link) contains both the above title and Through the Looking Glass, with introduction and excellent erudite notes by Martin Gardner, better known through earlier Scientific American articles and many mathematical recreation books.

Even the otherwise well-read reader may not today fully appreciate the mid-1800s cultural context in which Lewis Carroll wrote, or the kind of person he was. This annotated complete edition provides illuminating insight into even the more obscure associations and "secrets" in the text. Recommended. Paperware.

Wednesday 28.04

Close to summer weather now, a few days before the chill creeps back again. More translation work turned up. Looks to be a very busy few weeks ahead...

Tom Syroid found some new MS-related humour on the web, see his Tuesday notes.

Thursday 29.04

Huge bumblebees bumbling about in this fine weather. I mean, huge! Don't think I've ever seen any quite this big before -- flying hairy golfballs :)

A busy day, mostly in the details and the distractions. Not much to report. I do begin to feel the far edge of the eye of the storm, however, as Tom and I move closer to resuming the intense writing routines that prevailed during the proposal work..

I was going to note yesterday, except it got too late, that my wife Isabel and I went to a local meeting where a psychologist from Stockholm gave a talk about parent-teenager relations. The man was good, much better than expected, and had numerous interesting, insightful and humorous things to tell. Universal truths as it were, about how to achieve good parent-chld-school relationships. A telling point, and one that showed how "radical" he was compared to the standard approach, was the focus on "health factors" rather than the negative problem side. The idea was that by looking for and highlighting the positive aspects in any situation, and building on them, much greater progress was possible than if only focusing on the problem itself. Much of any problem lies in a negative self-view that effectively blocks any progress in that person. A focus by others on these negative sides only reinforces and deepens this, and easily "contaminates" other perhaps more positive views by people who have not experienced the "problem-person" in that way. Hence the problem spreads because of negative expectations, a prejudice that actively begins to provoke and seek confirmation. This works in all directions and has the effect of breaking down any functional lines of communication that can help resolve problems.

Friday 30.04

(Swedish "Valborg", Walpurgis Night. I wrote some history about this and Swedish public holidays in my LeufOrg 1998 articles.)

I should really stop following the news some days... On the other hand, blind ignorance of either world affairs or more local happenings is nothing to recommend, because when sundry regions start "exporting history" or disturbed individuals decide to manifest their festering grievances with extreme prejudice, the physics of violence simply does not respect ignorance. These things do not go away when ignored.

The trick is of course to see the opportunities for improvements and work for these, however small they may seem initially. I think the mistake most people make in like situations is to try and attain the "goal" (the "deliverable" utopia, as it were) in a few giant steps. Can't be done -- if only because the shape of the deliverable is in practical terms impossible to properly define in all its details until you get much closer to the goal. All too often in fact, you haven't a clue about how to even begin. So, the thing to do is to take small steps in whatever directions for good that seem manageable from the current position, and expand on the ones that give desired results. I find that the influence from such advances can through circumstances often become leveraged all out of proportion to the initial efforts.

A practical example of this approach is the Doctor Bank effort, see LeufNet subweb here. A lot of development aid is traditionally of the big step variety -- remotely pre-planned in great detail, costly to execute, and with dubious long-term results. There are better, more personal-scale ways to achieve lasting results, in addition boosting the recipients' self-esteem and involvement.

Even writing web journals, such as this one, proves to have long-reaching consequences for all involved. Much greater than one could even begin to suspect when beginning. This was true of my bookshop as well. Many years later, I have learned that what I created there had profound effects on a number of people; that I was sometimes doing "great good" for others without even realizing it, simply by doing whatever seemed to be modestly worthwhile in the small-step perspective.

Always be open to the opportunities; seek the confirmations of the seemingly small results. These will guide you to greater things.

Saturday 01.05

(Swedish (European) May Day -- public holiday (as above).)

Went for a family walk in a park. Sunny, but a very chill wind. Then we watched two taped Babylon 5 episodes, back to back. Mostly off the computer, but spent some time setting up discussion-server pages for local testing. Most satisfactory. I've been tweaking some perl code to fit my particular wishes.

Sunday 02.05

Sunny and warmer. A couple of hours of translation work so as to allow myself some extra time margins during the week.

* All in all a fairly relaxed day. And I kind of ignored any news today. Keeps things on a more personal level. Family time.

It's rather strange... We live in an apartment, always have as a family, although my parents have this huge old house way up north. Recurringly however, I have this sensation of a back yard, veranda, house-feeling. Very real, just a side-step away in some odd time-space-less dimension, so I can almost taste/smell/touch it. Today was one of those days. There is a house for us, somewhere, waiting...

Back to top -- Week list