Solitude Was Mourning
I see solitude standing by the window,
long after she spoke to Boethius
she came here just to see the hamarttan winds blow.
Leye oh Leye why did you have to go?
It was not your choice to go gently into the night.
In St Cloud we did not know what a tangled web Fortuna would weave.
Your elegy will always be a song called youth.
Death gave you came in spring with a load of discontent.
Leye your bones lie now in the city of lakes
The taker came, and now there are none to comfortless are left bereft
Is there no art to make your dry bones live?
Now only time will soften some aspects of grief.
From the first day your were my friend
I saw America again in your eyes.
Engineering was your game and in the mighty middle west
true love also came.
You were both two scholars united and now all we can do is
stare at solitude standing with her ashes in her hair,
Her cheeks are weepy in aspect.
with torn robes, she walks into the night of remembrance.
When my father told me my ears refused to believe.
When my father told me I said this cannot be.
When my father told me my eyes had a shocked stare.
Mr. Bello was a cheerful man
I am proud to say that I too knew him,
if only for a little while,
Leye I will always wish you were still here.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Power in Nigeria
The one thing that we know and love about Nigeria is that there is never any consistency. It is almost like everything in this country operates under the rule that if things cannot be just they should be arbitrary. In the land of African giantsthe lights don't just work as they do in other nations instead there is frequently no power sometimes for days or at work every five minutes we will get brown outs and blackouts.
As a result of this we do things like freeze the plastic baggies of faro water so that in the event of a power failure the things in our freezer will not go bad. Along with this intermittent, random power outages. The Power Holding Compnay of Nigeria will sometimes send wattages as low as 120 and other times as high as 280 so of course most electrical devices get damaged at the high voltages.
To add to the problems there are no standards for outlets and sockets here, some are like the UK ones, other are two round holes, so you cannot buy an applince and be certain it will fit in any of your outlets. Instead of applying one standard to outlets and plugs they can be anything.
This should not suprise me but it still does how everything is done worse than subpar but the only design ethic seems to be we make shitty because nothing should work. It is almost makes me think that Nigerians like confusion, discomfort, failure, and suffering.
As a result of this we do things like freeze the plastic baggies of faro water so that in the event of a power failure the things in our freezer will not go bad. Along with this intermittent, random power outages. The Power Holding Compnay of Nigeria will sometimes send wattages as low as 120 and other times as high as 280 so of course most electrical devices get damaged at the high voltages.
To add to the problems there are no standards for outlets and sockets here, some are like the UK ones, other are two round holes, so you cannot buy an applince and be certain it will fit in any of your outlets. Instead of applying one standard to outlets and plugs they can be anything.
This should not suprise me but it still does how everything is done worse than subpar but the only design ethic seems to be we make shitty because nothing should work. It is almost makes me think that Nigerians like confusion, discomfort, failure, and suffering.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Happy Birthday to Kahn's Algorithm
This evening I was giving a lecture on TCP timeout and retransmission. We looked at different situations where the client does not get an ack or response to its syn request and the students got to see how the RTO algorithm works in real life, I think they enjoyed the lecture. We also looked at a RFC 793 which covers Transmission Control Protocol and looked at how Microsoft made some changes to their implementation of TCP in 2003 Server so that they could understand how actual implementations can differ from the RFCs.
The last thing that we did was look at the email that Phil Karn sent on A New TCP Retransmission Algorithm. We talked about Khan's research and how is statements on packet radio applied to IEEE802.11 networks, and finally we loked at his famous algorithm and I commented about how he got his research data and tested his algorithm as well as the quality of writing in his informal email as I was looking at it I saw that the message was sent on Tuesday, 7th April 1987 at 20:59. I had shared this with my class on Tuesday, 7th April 2009 at 20:44. Twenty two years to the exact day of the week! Of course this made me very happy and I told the class that if we all had sodas I would have proposed a toast to Phil Kahn.
The last thing that we did was look at the email that Phil Karn sent on A New TCP Retransmission Algorithm. We talked about Khan's research and how is statements on packet radio applied to IEEE802.11 networks, and finally we loked at his famous algorithm and I commented about how he got his research data and tested his algorithm as well as the quality of writing in his informal email as I was looking at it I saw that the message was sent on Tuesday, 7th April 1987 at 20:59. I had shared this with my class on Tuesday, 7th April 2009 at 20:44. Twenty two years to the exact day of the week! Of course this made me very happy and I told the class that if we all had sodas I would have proposed a toast to Phil Kahn.
Monday, April 6, 2009
LaTeX For Lazy People
When it comes to putting figures, equations, tables into Microsoft Word documents or OpenOffice Writer I find it to be a major pain in my head and ass. My head because I have to deal with equation editors, cutting and pasting, alignments and other formatting issues. Two weeks ago I was creating an exam for one of my data comm classes and getting very frustrated with the way that OpenOffice does numbering so I decided to try LaTeX since it seemed to not require any the use of menus, GUIs or other things that I am slowly having less and less patience for.
At first I used Lyx but that was limited in a number of ways, but by studying the source code it generated I started to get the hang of LaTeX
scripting. So in about a week I was just creating my tex documents in vim then converting them to postscript files. Now that I getting comfortable with LaTeX I wonder why I put off learning it for so many years.
It really does make writing easier for me, once I finish my typing lessons the only thing that will keep me from being more productive in my writing will be the time and effort it takes to express an idea well. And as usual that is the hardest part that only practiced discipline can bring.
At first I used Lyx but that was limited in a number of ways, but by studying the source code it generated I started to get the hang of LaTeX
scripting. So in about a week I was just creating my tex documents in vim then converting them to postscript files. Now that I getting comfortable with LaTeX I wonder why I put off learning it for so many years.
It really does make writing easier for me, once I finish my typing lessons the only thing that will keep me from being more productive in my writing will be the time and effort it takes to express an idea well. And as usual that is the hardest part that only practiced discipline can bring.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
To Ian Chang
To Ian Chang
We are all individualists who descend into Mos Maiorum's
. Just like the ancient mariner I stolidly
accept Egyptian divas who drink pearls like Shivas.
Next like Poe you will ask how many Gordon's dance on the head of a Pym!
Don't quote Atlas Shrugged when John Galt rally balked!
So now we can tell Ayn Rand where to get off!
As I & I drive by baobab trees I listen to Kropotkin's 25
theses on the conquest of bread.
but I am still unaware of what he said
Bakunin is nailed to my head
if you think my ideas spring fully formed
consult the Stepping Razor
otherwise let Jah can be praised.
In a chant to Elijah Muhammad with hands upraised.
The kill and go
block the road in this land not described by Wayne's
Western Philosophy.
I once wrote a song about youth even though
I am no childe roland who to the heart of darkness came.
there is nothing here postmod and tradition dates
from 1919 thought they sell you 1416
I am a stranger in my own land so I look to distant shores
beyond pellinore, though every day I thank Napoleon for importing revolution
even though he ruled without constitution in a little Italian car.
I remember staying at the bent prop inn
where the wretched made a hearth and chanted
"we are the good guys in the back of the real!
Who helped Casey to the bat so that he finally makes a steal".
The czars of hegemony challenged her.
The gari eaters live in fear
Maybe at the next road stop
Some OC who dreams of welding a bull pup
will spray me with lead so I must sufficiently beg
To Ian Chang Who Taught Me Elementary break dancing
I dream of smoke machines
with 9 millimeter beams.
Wally sacrifices metals for our lifeline,
a pipeline to the 42 warring states
who celebrate Christmas last with unpaid repasts
of fatted kine soaked in Atlantic brine.
Now that there is a tasty kitchen in Jimeta
maybe Momma will stop tripping.
But outside of St Cloud there is no cheap thrills,
though En Vogue promised me something I can feel.
I ate poundo yam with spinach soup
and danced with baker street runners
in the red hot summer while Skika played
the beats of east African drummers
Hip hop is universal and I am sending another
object of Ioconsicousstream
May developing in C++ be more than a goddamn dream
Cape Town beckons
to travellers who dead reckon.
What makes this an African verse is that is while snow flakes fall on Mount Kilimanjaro
the Beautiful ones, unborn, weep not for the brahmins who came to this world twice.
Like Ogbanjes loudly proclaiming their right to return,
Then again I am thrice blessed, twice in the east once in the west.
If you mark the twain there are no more innocents abroad
just folks who mourn for Denver,
Denver, where Hiram Abiff raised his Moloch
over his Mexican Radio to kill the big beat.
I will stop here since there is no where else to go,
Some will show art in Mayday in the meantime there is the didachae to give me tropic dreams
of eternal machines.
We are all individualists who descend into Mos Maiorum's
. Just like the ancient mariner I stolidly
accept Egyptian divas who drink pearls like Shivas.
Next like Poe you will ask how many Gordon's dance on the head of a Pym!
Don't quote Atlas Shrugged when John Galt rally balked!
So now we can tell Ayn Rand where to get off!
As I & I drive by baobab trees I listen to Kropotkin's 25
theses on the conquest of bread.
but I am still unaware of what he said
Bakunin is nailed to my head
if you think my ideas spring fully formed
consult the Stepping Razor
otherwise let Jah can be praised.
In a chant to Elijah Muhammad with hands upraised.
The kill and go
block the road in this land not described by Wayne's
Western Philosophy.
I once wrote a song about youth even though
I am no childe roland who to the heart of darkness came.
there is nothing here postmod and tradition dates
from 1919 thought they sell you 1416
I am a stranger in my own land so I look to distant shores
beyond pellinore, though every day I thank Napoleon for importing revolution
even though he ruled without constitution in a little Italian car.
I remember staying at the bent prop inn
where the wretched made a hearth and chanted
"we are the good guys in the back of the real!
Who helped Casey to the bat so that he finally makes a steal".
The czars of hegemony challenged her.
The gari eaters live in fear
Maybe at the next road stop
Some OC who dreams of welding a bull pup
will spray me with lead so I must sufficiently beg
To Ian Chang Who Taught Me Elementary break dancing
I dream of smoke machines
with 9 millimeter beams.
Wally sacrifices metals for our lifeline,
a pipeline to the 42 warring states
who celebrate Christmas last with unpaid repasts
of fatted kine soaked in Atlantic brine.
Now that there is a tasty kitchen in Jimeta
maybe Momma will stop tripping.
But outside of St Cloud there is no cheap thrills,
though En Vogue promised me something I can feel.
I ate poundo yam with spinach soup
and danced with baker street runners
in the red hot summer while Skika played
the beats of east African drummers
Hip hop is universal and I am sending another
object of Ioconsicousstream
May developing in C++ be more than a goddamn dream
Cape Town beckons
to travellers who dead reckon.
What makes this an African verse is that is while snow flakes fall on Mount Kilimanjaro
the Beautiful ones, unborn, weep not for the brahmins who came to this world twice.
Like Ogbanjes loudly proclaiming their right to return,
Then again I am thrice blessed, twice in the east once in the west.
If you mark the twain there are no more innocents abroad
just folks who mourn for Denver,
Denver, where Hiram Abiff raised his Moloch
over his Mexican Radio to kill the big beat.
I will stop here since there is no where else to go,
Some will show art in Mayday in the meantime there is the didachae to give me tropic dreams
of eternal machines.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Schleping To Homer
One day after buying rubber boots for the wet and muddy conditions around here I decided to traipse from my mountain retreat to the bucolic town of Homer-by-the sea. I did not depart like Zarathustra, full of a light he wished to share with the world. Neither did I bound like a dog to whom after five seconds all scents, and sights are new, some say the first cynic was like that. No, instead I walked the way I always do, similar to a tourist surveying a new land while I carry a backpack of my previous places. I see the world with old eyes and the flowers are colored with the remembrance of the thousand flowers I saw before that is how I went down-going..
I went agoing like any other portly, middleaged man, who walks through a foot of mud for ten miles because he enjoys it. Maybe the picture below will you give an idea why.
After walking ten miles in my Neoprene Xtratufs I got onto a asphalted road and I saw this view. Some low lying clouds were around the cliff, the slight breeze was pushing them out to sea. In the distance I could see one of the many glaciers that are around here. Hopefully before winter I will be able to reach out and touch the head of the glacier and examine a crevasse. By the time I took this picture my feet, ankles, and hamstrings were quite sore. I sincerely hope gentle reader you never have to walk fourteen miles in my neoprene boots. Firstly because I am uncomfortable with lending out such intimate apparel as footware, secondly because it is very uncomfortable. Now I wonder why someone does not design Wellingtons with better support, I do not think the fishermen who stand in them for hours find them gentle on the feet either. Anyway I think the experience was worth the pain since I got to write about the pain of walking for miles with rainboots and take a nice picture. In the end Katya had to get me since I walked two miles away from town and my feet hurt too much to walk the five or six miles to her work.
I went agoing like any other portly, middleaged man, who walks through a foot of mud for ten miles because he enjoys it. Maybe the picture below will you give an idea why.
After walking ten miles in my Neoprene Xtratufs I got onto a asphalted road and I saw this view. Some low lying clouds were around the cliff, the slight breeze was pushing them out to sea. In the distance I could see one of the many glaciers that are around here. Hopefully before winter I will be able to reach out and touch the head of the glacier and examine a crevasse. By the time I took this picture my feet, ankles, and hamstrings were quite sore. I sincerely hope gentle reader you never have to walk fourteen miles in my neoprene boots. Firstly because I am uncomfortable with lending out such intimate apparel as footware, secondly because it is very uncomfortable. Now I wonder why someone does not design Wellingtons with better support, I do not think the fishermen who stand in them for hours find them gentle on the feet either. Anyway I think the experience was worth the pain since I got to write about the pain of walking for miles with rainboots and take a nice picture. In the end Katya had to get me since I walked two miles away from town and my feet hurt too much to walk the five or six miles to her work.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Sunset Over Mount Augustine
One of the things that I like about living in a mountain cabin ten miles from Homer is that you can see the volcanoes around here. I was told by the SO that the one you can see easiest is active, on a really clear day its' possible to see Mount Augustine smoking. The other thing is there are some beautiful sunsets with the sea, the moutains, and the forest are all painted by the light of the eleven o'clock northen sun. There are many beautiful, wild places here and I am already trying to plan a hiking excursion to some of the mountians once I get a boat to take me.
After I read Call of The Wild & Two Against The North I imagined what it would be like to live here, I just hope I get to see a lot of the outdoors. Strange Death wrote about the sameness of the American commercial landscape. If he came here he would find that because of the many hippies and partial randites from the little I have seen of the architecture here its' a mix of; 19th century American homestead school, Native Alaskan design, fishing village chique, and Alpine lodge style. But then again I could be completely wrong since I am not by nature very taken to architetrucal critiques, however buildings are not designed in the same style as Minneapolis or Montgomery.
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