HDCP Master Key

HDCP MASTER KEY (MIRROR THIS TEXT!)

This is a forty times forty element matrix of fifty-six bit
hexadecimal numbers.

To generate a source key, take a forty-bit number that (in
binary) consists of twenty ones and twenty zeroes; this is
the source KSV. Add together those twenty rows of the matrix
that correspond to the ones in the KSV (with the lowest bit
in the KSV corresponding to the first row), taking all elements
modulo two to the power of fifty-six; this is the source
private key.

To generate a sink key, do the same, but with the transposed
matrix.


6692d179032205 b4116a96425a7f ecc2ef51af1740 959d3b6d07bce4 fa9f2af29814d9
82592e77a204a8 146a6970e3c4a1 f43a81dc36eff7 568b44f60c79f5 bb606d7fe87dd6
1b91b9b73c68f9 f31c6aeef81de6 9a9cc14469a037 a480bc978970a6 997f729d0a1a39
b3b9accda43860 f9d45a5bf64a1d 180a1013ba5023 42b73df2d33112 851f2c4d21b05e
2901308bbd685c 9fde452d3328f5 4cc518f97414a8 8fca1f7e2a0a14 dc8bdbb12e2378
672f11cedf36c5 f45a2a00da1c1d 5a3e82c124129a 084a707eadd972 cb45c81b64808d
07ebd2779e3e71 9663e2beeee6e5 25078568d83de8 28027d5c0c4e65 ec3f0fc32c7e63
1d6b501ae0f003 f5a8fcecb28092 854349337aa99e 9c669367e08bf1 d9c23474e09f70

3c901d46bada9a 40981ffcfa376f a4b686ca8fb039 63f2ce16b91863 1bade89cc52ca2
4552921af8efd2 fe8ac96a02a6f9 9248b8894b23bd 17535dbff93d56 94bdc32a095df2
cd247c6d30286e d2212f9d8ce80a dc55bdc2a6962c bcabf9b5fcbe6f c2cfc78f5fdafa
80e32223b9feab f1fa23f5b0bf0d ab6bf4b5b698ae d960315753d36f 424701e5a944ed
10f61245ebe788 f57a17fc53a314 00e22e88911d9e 76575e18c7956e c1ef4eee022e38
f5459f177591d9 08748f861098ef 287d2c63bd809e e6a28a6f5d000c 7ae5964a663c1b
0f15f7167f56c6 d6c05b2bbe8800 544a49be026410 d9f3f08602517f 74878dc02827f7
d72ef3ea24b7c8 717c7afc0b55a5 0be2a582516d08 202ded173a5428 9b71e35e45943f

9e7cd2c8789c99 1b590a91f1cffd 903dca7c36d298 52ad58ddcc1861 56dd3acba0d9c5
c76254c1be9ed1 06ecb6ae8ff373 cfcc1afcbc80a4 30eba7ac19308c d6e20ae760c986
c0d1e59db1075f 8933d5d8284b92 9280d9a3faa716 8386984f92bfd6 be56cd7c4bfa59
16593d2aa598a6 d62534326a40ee 0c1f1919936667 acbaf0eefdd395 36dbfdbf9e1439
0bd7c7e683d280 54759e16cfd9ea cac9029104bd51 436d1dca1371d3 ca2f808654cdb2
7d6923e47f97b5 70e256b741910c 7dd466ed5fff2e 26bec4a28e8cc4 5754ea7219d4eb
75270aa4d3cc8d e0ae1d1897b7f4 4fe5663e8cb342 05a80e4a1a950d 66b4eb6ed4c99e
3d7e9d469c6165 81677af04a2e15 ada4be60bc348d dfdfbbad739248 98ad5986f3ca1f

971d02ada31b46 2adab96f7b15da 9855f01b9b7b94 6cef0f65663fbf eb328e8a3c6c5d
e29f0f0b1ef2bf e4a30b29047d31 52250e7ae3a4ac fe3efc3b8c2df1 8c997d15d6078b
49da8b4611ff9f b1e061bc9be995 31fd68c4ad6dc6 fd8974f0c506dd 90421c1cd2b26c
53eec84c91ed17 5159ba3711173b 25e318ddceea6a 98a14125755955 2bb97fd341cea2
3f8404769a0a8e bce5c7a45fb5d4 9608307b43f785 2a98e5856afe75 b4dbead4815cac
d1118af62c964a 3142667a5b0d14 6c6f90933acd3d 6b14a0052e2be4 1b1811fda0f554
12300aa7f10405 1919ca0bff56ea d3e2f3aad5250c 4aeeea5101d2ec 377fc499c07057
6cb1a90cdb7b11 3c839d47a4b814 25c5ac14b5ec28 4ef18646d5b9c2 95a98cc51ebd3b

310e98028e24de 092ffc76b79f44 0740a1ca2d4737 b9f38966257c99 a75afc7454abe4
a6dd815be8ccbf ec2cac2df0c675 41f7636aa4080f 30e87b712520fd d5dfdc6d3266ac
ee28f5479f836f 0bf8ee2112173f 43ae802fa8d52d 4e0dffd36c1eac 3cbda974bb7585
fb60a4700470e3 d9f6b6083ef13d 4a5840f02d0130 6c20ef5e35e2bf dad2f85c745b5b
61c5ddc65d3fc9 7f6ec395d4ae22 2b8906fb3996e2 e4110f59eb92ac 1cb212b44128bb
545afda80a4fd1 b1ffea547eab6b fac3d9166afce8 3fe35fe17586f2 9d082667026a4c
17ffaf1cb50145 24f27b316acfff b6bb758ec4ad60 995e8726359ef7 c44952cb424035
5ec53461dbd248 40a1586f04aee7 49ea3fa4474e52 c13e8f52c51562 30a1a70162cfb8

ccbada27b91c33 33661064d05759 3388bb6315b036 0380a6b43851fb 0228dadb44ad3d
b732565bc37841 993c0d383cfaae 0bea49476758ac accc69dbfcde8b f416ab0474f022
2b7dbcc3002502 20dc4e67289e50 0068424fde9515 64806d59eb0c18 9cf08fb2abc362
8d0ee78a6cace9 b6781bd504d105 af65fab8ee6252 64a8f8dd8e2d14 cb9d3354e06b5b
53082840d3c011 8e080bedab3c4c e30d722a455843 24955a20397c17 82495c1c5114e8
656e71c31d813d 1f0a6d291823a1 6327f9534353fa b89529c2f034fb 70e9b12205c7b3
a06c87969407a2 520bfa2fe80f90 da1efc3d345c65 313936ec023811 a8cc87128be2fa
4cd0e8645ee141 be7975519e2b63 9543d23113c2a8 3d87b0da033f22 df0464c704e9d4

7e1a30947e867e 014ae464b37935 5c4babf689fa4e c4aec0cb01cc35 328c0e4a0230e4
fdacb93b419594 26deefc8a553e6 6e75a2d790cb55 2c4554518f7396 94b77184cb145d
95f883f620a8bb edff42866a2783 7b4ee6304b711d ed56e077a4b9fb c4e60e687ff6c3
0cbf144b8f64d5 023dd10a35eddd beaa3323e999c6 d2e016b31c38c4 8d2917a888f799
18c3abd28e736b 8d38e69b4966cc 624db0143dd2e7 5e2fa510f632b7 ee6e64d45b139a
a1c6d852e74be7 429843b9e6bb7e db9ab07c8dc267 9efa092299f071 dcca9e0e61e960
94406fac95f1d8 d19122f3f88782 1b11a662e9c83f d161fd6fb7f032 89f7d984da9d48
a3583fea45fe58 885e2c4839e254 47e87235f713b1 f4732e05b71aee ae026d063f4349

0a481d2db197af abfce1039d4ac0 4a6b89d2d1aeac 0842eb7178cc53 b82ce2835f1937
3b4002ca21d6b6 e64a78a78abb27 8bd6142ad04526 e035dacb23624a 4cf80110135771
7a52fafc92745e efa28a290ea782 735617cd8b0221 b095e9f4b286a5 021e9ba0727645
3e58e9ec16ed1c d7732bb5ba99a6 374bde43fa89a9 cb83e5ef2e4d04 1da4f73566d134
e01da194625c25 d62018764d7473 64643721313d24 5a01badd970941 481c9578781414
a4d3faa92d1fef bd4b247d37862a 5332a7ca3c2ca6 393ee51989d5a9 01a6e564040d37
390c472ee27892 f0217fe009e9b4 5d3f04da415b35 612ecd5b8e4eac 757e27d2169f2d
92853b737b7526 9ac837c86476df e956c2b45ebd5e d4fa6da687ac39 60f4343669ddd3

64b8d778e72e78 f86cd55efe92b8 a9adbf2e728440 966c8282cee1f9 ea195972b883f4
46ac03b37e7f24 744df253954ae5 22e3f9a0adbc58 6add7c7d8a2961 ba963e4912d17c
2840ac28fcfad9 8d8ec3ad6dfc32 a3c788dd094910 e65ebb61dabb5f b50e906b28c881
003b11eb83e6a9 a2fac0595b138d 3d55a28f915330 c343bd1849a085 54c786629d2b42
1d465cb22ccbc2 d8f87fd52aded1 ecb34f46656b71 b4cbe50f839f2c 2df6a553cc3698
40b2dd25f26d51 492f3c5c6fa566 f80dd453864548 d4be786d8735d9 e364511a0fb62d
3c2df64d6d1c9f f640e4ef4186be 41773025d6ff57 6147e75d7df3f5 49809548639d16
01067ef6034247 4e7c1b20deb154 3f8172a6b98ea0 b0691d4b575801 136a88607a3e5b

0180058ca8742e 972bc2ca1c4cb6 7b05bbc57e63df 5f01049697eaa2 c537f3121384dc
edb1fa0b34f132 689b1374cafe25 802d7bca5c6674 f8e01e75e9eb3d a59c2d9126d85d
f10f603f8c4fd9 d5a358aa84b2d5 f8320f2a3bd078 019bcf0dabb5c3 43dd8dd5e173f0
45169f788a0233 d62daee0e9839c 7d673cf77a53d2 008730faf272d0 3c08080778ae8d
920e40fad87d7e bf118230ffb194 692baf40b951b4 83549affe4e382 68e172f86a40b3
aa5e2c1b74636d c3d7809ac68aae 33c344fd9bcc33 6e6057dc7d71f0 bceef547db57fa
ec91cc1056e4b5 8153f00c8ef4f8 a2ca943ab03915 079a070121782d d592dcec23dd3f
44ba5fe5078279 e6f8ed790ffa59 e7877e834b4391 d1ca3db32bccd7 b382e35bff1ba1

96cb3b9ef8671e 70342fff9216a5 d635530148dcc6 bf40909f72ba4b e3697761ac11f1
f2a77a5f435c5c a57729bb9aaf37 14f78a30f9bf6f 1a7fe7f0271b01 0b224bc83ef07b
0d409ce2157473 adefa793287d48 a6b13ce8e00a7f 74d735fd54a00b e2dc16285d1b5a
8b3d55371ce703 bb3909153586b6 03c8c622aa53e9 89ee3322e069aa 325ce41fbd0175
2cd1326421cd83 3c47eed2daadda 87c2177de0c63f 39b496d688c971 179359349f5e0e
3cfa9ea9345dbc 47b1948cbfe45f 2a13b18cf3a0d1 00b03fc13e6cde 656ef26757f5d1
7c584630c27fb2 02f2e14ca8a67e fcfec527978154 4ec09910379625 e90fc0a898a5b7
5beb0f3ee5d03a 2383832708cfb7 6905747e27453e 1714e418f0f0a3 53bcdef0965e8d

2c9b5813b90c3c bb9a20c8ebb80e 045e04f3d57918 6fe6ffb0718731 201760abf11c27
e289872adda7e1 233e7ef2b2c83b 423b4c0ba711db 334b15e5bd4c01 034d1e41bff0e8
58a436cce28ea3 e6ef4d94b49962 ec8728db63716b 8c8ffc95c21b06 0beb50502d9acb
c1eb732268091a e45e0c30cfed36 31d58c384bc3e4 8a26ae8b7a5c60 83991e11e8a21e
e4f193c0183e07 691fbbf9ccb4c2 4e5214fae905d8 2052c969e9699d f6cea5a6157de3
fd84477a6bad8e 04f37758724bc3 a491d0fd8f084e 19933cec5f51f0 93794e76e1f29b
ebd1f1c057b30c 7ec220fa6d31d9 867d711c9a7674 a700cf5f177e37 cf3fae5da3ddc4
4e8030990c7917 553a5ce2abaaa4 c2296c42e2dcea 19ae4f9b654581 66d5fff1163703

bb5085e0e7d595 12605df8a35f9f 35c6d572c28ea5 5099437e5f5595 fb45cdaa8872f1
6e012db5feedc3 1ba0e5515be76f b793b687fbf1dd 9d2c01063d4ca1 c2e6fde5bc3a1c
c17b11e1a33418 436fcacef170c5 e4c3cbc3066618 2063665d2a1b84 a8b5b4f2e58850
ce74bcbc892d71 b312d96806cdc8 82d9c95678fff1 5d8a0120206c3c 621f13db39bd6e
4a5db4815f181d 8dae6e596cebd5 1b8b1681dd4918 1dbcbd79f8e5ff 135064b0968c4e
d81e91507c1e96 ce08e072644e54 e1648d32befadc d0b7f41fca118d 7b9291b680b18a
10ab9a2fb4f9a0 9f462d2370dd03 bb453f4b48b2ea b3c3e6d63c2559 be4aa3d8e8f129
90af78e01d25c9 2e06a8715063da 988dbf792de669 17eabe5b043c41 b1f700946e4ad2

e329ae8a66581e 4a5bda0ff2a313 79577080aaac8c 0dd34f4f929df3 0f5e87f82b9b1f
1ead67333c42d5 ebac8fb8797375 dc26965e625abb 953ce074d8c84c 2edd54991b2104
a45196065c2bca 98f56533f328bf 8560a1a390e921 37d2506aff3d7b f88576a47d273e
562b7c9592ffdc 2d0ff0ba59787b 4dd89971bd39a6 7a4a778d69a4cc 58bad18bf5fc74
5cac8d53dcc72c ba7e9c7a2b57d7 ff544acc98f08f 1d22f503712081 cf868290f04def
ba48ab7c61a8ab 3ca439f055f713 2401e3a43338e0 b7c4b19cf1edc8 37db6b0d8991a7
10ede95c9c35e6 a8f021fc870126 6e5909a7f3217b 33772e647266ff a5c8fd0c786e0f
04f0bb34025c67 cc33c6a49bf101 45c563f33f807d 6e95e9c2b5e349 3a0e55d42d44b7

611138d0e928dd 24d7958e8e6149 c66faf12b50f45 eaa5eb19337961 e68c81cb35d5d3
ed1fe1f1b8d443 612ca593de8afe 6c15ee22ffb8b0 c27152ca5a1e77 0133b8165e3ed1
608c9c1a6ca4aa df5272bd1b6425 6f7efc5b2bbfa0 b49b5f0c67ee30 f4ef0e7ed820cb
4b14d077b672ce 3a60f2386c0218 9e8d6e5f6caddf a53ccecbae8684 d3183beeba0cef
4cd21e6afc08e8 5db41995d15a93 6afe570246af77 d0994bc305b27f 2de99a0885c909
1629a47aaa161f 0f6b6d45ff8967 cfc4e83f5b469c cc22586cab3936 29e6b3f94d122e
83f00e419d8980 bb282b6f3efdef 30d80463fb25e0 1846f8f1b935d3 3c03ed5243b7b4
cb6b0e6e4c770f 8bc2856390163a 73a332bc2ebabd b3aeafedbc8c08 74ff7726398cd4

0071d5d3644b97 45dd1ae0369e9a c1f518cd384512 b933bc25cb3402 9377c50007d647
e609eb009c9245 7d99fff828ba6e 9f0adcca6cd0a9 5c5cf8366b699f f00f513ad9e29d
7c2ecfdb5afe40 1f131691f0677b 30e1df0cce8710 f3c52df030e941 b2bb6b650cf2d7
012a5a2d11f1b4 4699b78e898918 977b2e06972b36 674e2619e6be97 93007948f99eee
af2b5b80b81bb3 417446ac93bc16 14fb20c6ab0e24 3ffc77d1672771 36580afea2edec
48942ed95911c5 fa312a7aca8f83 992e36a47ef1db 3937ff39b1a9b5 2af79ef5c48c64
6c88d58111a0b7 b6fa6dc5f7c8dc b1acc64f2b083d 332baac65b4feb e58dae530ad4af
0fbdb072d0ba36 e2607b065b6fe4 f803ae22cb2a6c 9b639dd91166cc f5e430b9cece8c

687c1dc2ac5898 b429122b168f1c 4248f91ae51605 1c24d7f1578ba6 1dec5a6c003598
e3c04b01a812a7 2df7909352cece de31efaffdd0d4 e4a7f11873ec87 4768f7b8d77583
23b6f7bae4521f 8fbf571e568d5a 577ad8b71f3721 718b68ac1ada36 e10689cc83ea91
43f73798b295f7 6e2b078c8d68e5 613c3bb265ca36 d25d07032b8c80 843fe3783b5959
e918f7789f0d33 afac1cb1534684 0fb3c6c442a94b 167f58645b56c2 76132472470129
590ae9be533d39 75adfeba5e6230 30dea290d933d7 08cc4d30a4af39 09bc69be193a2f
f7f8ff9f03af3b 3ad1a453e9dde4 a534709b6e15c7 c6ce7d4efd42e9 5e947977595b68
ca674d0c7541e9 97f178a43b6057 137a6483c7653a 49f1eec3082cc7 70824eb5bebf04

cf95519563f7c7 cef140efdaa431 4f8ddc5fb70009 27710736a485cd 41b05dfead9e7a
dcbf8e83a3a89a 23e46b5a421a08 84f0fb922099a4 120b226eedd549 cf4706582b36f4
e3b718cabb9c11 03db1daab9520a 3a29a8c65c45f6 0219e82dbeb36b b351c498a8dda8
0ba2a5607f3bf6 0b95be14721f63 62d3b4d2b1fc16 f46a95de23a55e b70c2f136e83eb
a0b215f5837e73 d76368870bd5bc 0372cf15e7ff03 c992d958598014 1fb03e9712f2c4
a73b9107699fb2 239ad1d706b5f3 3623dab66fefc1 8b5e04ac40e7ed 77eaadd7c4d35c
b3ba11dde839a2 621e7ab334235d 29f2ed9f1990d9 e0d731952272a4 d31f58d8cfad64
57690ff74579fe e78fb0fe43c6cf b127e3c5c7da88 1765c8883fcd01 dc0028f618172d

07d8f79c0e5b79 bdff41e18ee3b3 0990bd1c710888 b0ef52eb6da5bd b790ff7419e17d
22ab4221d42b9a 35bec4ded01a53 6a2f35fd63b686 db66f3c21b9291 165a5fd321d034
f2ea034bd3a6b6 4d47388e2680b7 018dd250cfd53b 53babaed27080a 73c54d98e4a365
6a77f2e71cfab6 4f9539f7e67a64 c35beaa6ab5528 1698a8ee44d10d 01e623ff7096e8
96a68072d59c56 6baba4b0d232ee 725a1f9e0fbeb1 97728ef73b9a8e 16ecfe23a3bdb6
f035aac743b427 202c094281f68b 1c8be9e39e4591 0959fad0920ae6 15a97f475dc632
a3fc9e9363688a 89cea147f0339b d1ffe6e68570d2 329a0b16c32fa2 cbd5818383dd8f
c26f57abe7c8cd 4d680e55e8a77d feefbd47b284a3 41bc9077e7df69 1c32ea11a0df3c

2ea8501eab0c69 63dff30ea51c9f 8de69a045d957b 4036f90d8e90b7 5886f2e5059e5d
7341e707011eca 8d6006677dabf1 2c6f2040741941 5058a43d3958d2 29eee2b01178b8
eb9e382e6ea2e5 62e44ce8f6b19e a5b4444f78d77d c12755f1de34c7 8fd001eb8d0d91
8a3ece83c541b5 659f736aca9076 1c1864cc5b30f1 1b9f901459a142 f5571fc19f94a3
39e842e17176ca ed2a1659a97f8e 625e74d131b3da bdbdfeaa0366bd 95ebf86c33a687
4a09faea206cd1 29f59174377238 908e6c956350cb 686a225a26548c a45140d1ed5b76
75e9ea2087732c 14dd568be007bf 3668e3791bdd4b 56f9aa39df5785 e7b37c964271c9
c5211e837c726e 374513cd4cd34f a5c71ff1a4195e 4e234c5adc13b4 75093fc66c8faf

2ec02dd6ea2715 d8676bb21e7f0b b4c22ceadbd907 9ccaf78857ea36 a28da605bbf2d8
723651fb07c86a 07039b49d2fa32 40dbb6dc2ef93d da48f7e9d5eb92 45bc6190b3a9e4
fc84b55352b994 25f44b36a3fb83 d09a8f4ab7d78e 0829201a523b21 966e0098395656
5984c4e317d930 581dd2ab677c99 a92a70424c5aae 4ea1dbaca67de1 e45918a0d6d560
1e5c75efdd907f 99a6e56cbb015f 04fd11c8ae4d05 83a72f3e967bb6 2ddf23b892d1e5
d648bbe9e5f8d3 d4b128d667ff6a 781dcd435b03f4 1a1cb99fc298e1 69d80c51941a26
5263476c788bb7 db0b584b59ec8d d95a4e9a6a95c5 5263b0eb0cc8d4 98e62e5116ab09
97564c79d4b733 39d708c3284fb2 d2cd596efe674a a9e3b1f33b4473 70b30aa67c0c2c

3532c9874c8ce5 680a796f9db4b3 64e5825663090f eb0a67604f3f9b 7c4716c88afa20
cecf4b6b1467f8 342600406fe556 200290eea56903 36562b6cff764c b02d3847d68f8f
a26c2ab20fe063 5de36be096db8d ac5998b94e3c17 4c8808ebb9bf53 4bbf0a436470da
d3875253f7b0a9 a99369bfede348 8c3391fd3a5f95 5005f88c89d735 acd8196d21d41b
5ba2ce34f48817 da3e7f4332994f 8cfe88c8ae18af e4df8b64d16e61 b0f200ab8229f9
5a15b4ad681a60 350a1bb85a5708 f5731809fe17da 9da29858778783 e496533ffbda6c
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No more anonymous comments...

I turned off anonymous commenting today. Too many spammer scumbags leaving spam in the comments...

Theories and Laws...

Hypothesis - an educated guess that may or may not be backed up by facts. When most people say "in theory" they really mean "I hypothesize that...".

 Theory - A way of explaining why something works the way it does, backed up observational/experimental results. The Chilton's guide for my car is the theory manual behind the operation of my car. The theory of gravity attempts to explain why gravity works the way it does. A book on computer science is the theory guide explaining how your computer works. And so on...

 Law - A description of a phenomenon, but does not explain the "why". A train schedule is an example of a "law". It explains when the train will arrive but has no power to explain why the train got there on time. The "law" of gravity explains why your head hurts when someone drops a brick on it, but only the "theory" of gravity explains why the brick dropped downwards, instead of just floating there in space. Last but not least, in case it is not obvious, theories are never promoted to "law" status. 

Hypothesis are educated guesses. Theories explain "why". Laws explain "what".

A sed keeper...

For those of you who are shell scripters, you may find this one useful:

/bin/sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n\n\n*/\n\n/g'

This removes multiple blank spaces in a file and replaces them with only one blank space. There are other ways to do this, but this is one of them...

Source: http://linux.dsplabs.com.au/rmnl-remove-new-line-characters-tr-awk-perl-sed-c-cpp-bash-python-xargs-ghc-ghci-haskell-sam-ssam-p65/

Mac Mini Upgrade and Adventures in Boot Camp

Now that Snow Leopard is out and I have some time off between classes, I am able to get Bailey's computer fully upgraded. I thought it was going to be a simple software upgrade, but as it turns out, his Mac Mini was only running on 512MB of RAM and a 80 GB hard drive. Since he is starting to use this machine for more than just games, I guess it is time to max out the RAM and get him a decently sized hard drive.

A quick trip to Best Buy and $200 later, we have 2 GB of PC2-5300 RAM and a nice Seagate 7200 RPM 320 GB hard drive. I considered going larger on the hard drive, but my time was too short to wait for something to be delivered and the 320 GB was the largest drive they had that was 7200 RPM. Also, now that we are going to have three people on the Time Capsule, I figured 320 GB was a good limiter to make sure he would not prematurely force me to upgrade the Time Capsule to 2TB.

I used the iFixIt instructions for opening up the Mac Mini. It was surprisingly easy. One thing they did not mention was to label each screw you remove. I used a sticky note and labeled where I removed each screw from. Most of the screws were identical, but I noticed one or two were specialized sizes, so I was glad I kept that organized. Another part I had to learn the hard way was the RAM insertion. I did not insert one of the sticks hard enough and when I booted up the machine only one stick registered. After re-seating the RAM, I was able to get both 1GB sticks to properly register. I might also add that the Mac Mini is a really impressive sample of engineering. Everything fits together amazingly well. Total hardware time would have been about an hour if I had seated the RAM correctly the first time. Given my mistake, it was around 2.5 hours (I tested each stick individually).

Now that the hardware was working properly, it was time to install Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The install was effectively effortless. There were only two hitches. The first was the basic install. No drives showed up to select as a target to install. I was able to go to one of the installer pull-down menus (I think it was Utilities) and select disk tools to partition and format the disk. Once that was done the installer showed the target disk and the install went through flawlessly.

The second hitch came after the installation was complete. I noticed that the "Macintosh HD" icon was missing from the desktop. After some help from TheGoogle, I figured out it was simply a default configuration option that is delivered with Snow Leopard. To add it back, just click on the desktop anywhere so you display the Finder menu. Select "Preferences" from the Finder menu and make sure "Hard Disks" is checked in the "General" menu. I also found it helpful to go to the "Sidebar" tab and and check the box next to "Hard Disks" and turn off the one for "iDisk" (I choose not to use Mobile Me, so iDisk is not useful to me).

Once all of that was complete I went to Software Update and installed all of the updates (at this point there were only three). Voila, fully working Snow Leopard system with 4x the RAM and 4X the Hard Drive space. Total "from scratch" OS X Snow Leopard install time with updates, 2-ish hours.

Last but not least, it was time to get the WindowsXP partition up and running. Boot Camp has gotten incredibly easy to use since I originally played with the beta. I found the Boot Camp icon in Application/Utilities. It started up and allowed me to partition and format the disk, then it had me insert my WindowsXP Pro SP2 disk and rebooted into the XP installer. One of the biggest problems I encountered was that my keyboard would not work. After some searching, I found out that it was the Mighty Mouse that was confusing the XP installer. I removed the mouse and moved the keyboard to the USB port just below the audio port (the last one), and after rebooting, the XP installer worked just fine (I am not sure that moving the USB keyboard port helped, but I figured I would mention it). When it came time to select the partition to install to, it was easy to find the BOOTCAMP partition. I opted to change the format from FAT to NTFS (I have since verified that NTFS is still read-only from OS X, hopefully Apple fixes this some day). Once the graphical installer interface came up, I was able to plug the Mighty Mouse back in and it worked for the remainder of the install.

After the base XPSP2 install was complete, I inserted the Snow Leopard disk to install all of the Apple specific drivers. Once that was done, it was time to start applying XP updates. I made the mistake of attempting to install the SP3 update first. I kept on getting error messages about not being able to find files like "osloader.ntd". I figured this was because I did not apply the mountain of pre-SP3 updates first, which I then proceeded to do. It took so long I went to bed and resumed the next day. Even after that, SP3 still did not apply cleanly. After some searching, I was able to find this link that perfectly explained what was wrong and provided a solution that worked. After that, SP3 applied cleanly and then I was able to apply the final group of updates. Total time spent getting Windows XP installed and fully updated was probably 12 hours, nearly 3x what was required for a RAM, Hard Drive and OS X Snow Leopard install (4x if I had gotten the RAM installed correctly the first time).

I also spent some time getting FireFox 3.5 installed in each OS as it is one of the required browsers for Bailey's online Math class. The last thing I did was to get The Snow Leopard partition connected to the Time Capsule. This was the easiest part. I clicked the Time Capsule icon in the dock, slid the switch from "Off" to "On" and typed in the Time Capsule password. After that, I just left the machine alone while it did the initial backup of the OS (8.11GB). I should also mention that the first Time Capsule backup has to complete uninterrupted, so I turned off the power-saving settings in case the Mini went to sleep before it was done (I left myself a note to remember to turn it back on when it was done).

Palm Pre and a few warts...

I indulged in a Palm Pre a few days ago. I had been waiting to get an Android phone, but I figure it will be at least two years until we see anything Android from Sprint, so locking myself into a two year agreement with the Pre seems like a reasonable compromise.

So far, I really like it, it is beautiful and has a lot of potential. I am still getting used to how things work and I cannot wait to get an SSH client on it and figure out how to tether it.

One thing I did not notice in any of the reviews is that there are a few fairly glaring bugs and annoyances that I will try to detail here:

• The biggest annoyance is migrating calendar and contacts with the migration tool (I used the Mac OSX version). I started from my old Treo 680 and sync'd it one last time to iCal and AddressBook. After running the sync tool to move things over to the Pre, none of the street addresses get migrated and fax numbers occasionally get mixed up and duplicated. I had to go through my entire address book and manually enter the street addresses. Although very time consuming, I feel that it was a good exercise because it gave me a chance to clean up my address book. Something that I have not done in years apparently... A lesser annoyance is that all day calendar events with no specific time (like an anniversary) show up on the Pre as timed events lasting the entire day. I had to go in and manually change the setting to "All Day".

• When updating the calendar, it takes an unusual amount of time for the change to actually appear on the calendar. It feels like there is a refresh bug of some sort that keeps the old calendar information on the screen *JUST* until the point at which you are unsure if the change took, and then *poof* the screen updates. Rather strange...

• The text messaging app does not show character count. This is rather a pain when twitting because there is a 140 character limit... less than the text messaging limit...
  

• It would appear as if certain apps cannot be deleted unless I root my pre. I will be doing that eventually, but with the limit of three launcher pages, it would be nice to be able to tidy things up a bit.

• Call me pathological, but I would like an easy way to migrate over my phone calling history. The Treo was great about keeping a permanent record that would follow you from phone to phone. This does not appear to be the case with the Pre.

I think there are a few other things, but this is all I have for now. For comparison, if I were to list everything I *LIKE* about the Pre, I would be typing all night long. Other than not knowing how many characters in a text message, the rest of the issues can be worked around or are simply not that important...

NASA 747 pilot tells of carrying the Space Shuttle

Reposted with permission. Fascinating story!

Triple Nickel - NASA Pilot

Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email.

The experience was surreal.

Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream...someone else's dream.

We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early.

If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls.

I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees

duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe...I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"!

I said "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced.

Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?

The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage! The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board.

I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back," not a good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.

Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon.

So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...

After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing.

However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit.

But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun.

There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing; and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!!

So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long.

Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet.

I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.

I've been called worse by better!

A good friend of mine was fortunate enough to be chosen to attend a dinner with Richard M Stallman a.k.a. "RMS". My friend cast about for questions to ask RMS during dinner. Here was mine (which I am told was printed out and handed to RMS, rather than verbally paraphrased):

Ask him what he thinks of William Wallace (Character portrayed in Braveheart). Does he see himself as someone who wanted to be just an average farmer, but got pulled into something bigger and more important because his conscience would not let him ignore what was going on? Or was he always scrapping for a fight and the free software issue seemed to suit him well.

My guess is that it's the latter, but he is only capable of seeing himself as the
former.

And the response from RMS:

"This is hostile. Who wrote this? Fuck him."

ID Not Required!

This comes from my friend Phil Mocek. I've reprinted it here with permission unedited.

Hi, everyone. Sorry for the rather impersonal mass mailing.

Some of you, namely KU basketball fans and Kansas Citians, have undoubtedly already seen this, but I'm pretty excited about it and want to bring it to others' attention: On Wednesday, April 9, 2008, the  Kansas City Star ran a front-page article [1] about my efforts to stand up for our right to travel freely in this country without being monitored by our government.

[1]: <http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/567590.html>

Inspired by people like John Gilmore [2], Chris Soghoian [3], and my friend Ben [4], I've been flying without identifying myself to TSA agents for a couple years, and after my last flight to Kansas City, I filed a complaint with the TSA about signs posted at the airport [5] that falsely state that travelers must present photo identification before crossing the security checkpoint.

[2]: <http://papersplease.org/gilmore/>
[3]: <http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769089-46.html>
[4]: <http://oblivion.net/~ben/journal/?entry=725>
[5]: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmocek/2349302702/>

After receiving a response from TSA [6] confirming that there is no requirement that people show ID for domestic flights (and not mentioning anything about fixing the signs), I got in touch with the right people, and the next thing I knew a reporter from the Kansas City Star was interviewing me.  At the time I had no idea it would end up on the front page, much less on a somewhat-commemorative "National champion University of Kansas basketball team returns home to big parade" issue that was surely in the eyes of many people who wouldn't otherwise pick up the paper.  (That a picture of me, someone who would rather watch paint dry than sit through a basketball game, is likely to end up on the walls of hundreds of KU fans is particularly delicious.)

[6]: <http://papersplease.org/wp/2008/03/31/id-still-not-required-to-fly/>

I feel pretty strongly about this issue and hope that you'll give it at least a little consideration.

If you're so inclined, please read on for my best newspaper-friendly summary of why I've been doing what I do.  I submitted this to the Star today and very much hope that it is published by them as an op-ed. Judging by the interest the story seems to have generated in KC, I think  there's a good chance that they will do so.  If they do, I'm going to do what I can to get one of the Seattle papers to pick it up, and I also have a connection at the AP who might be interested.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

While flying out of Kansas City last year, I saw TSA signs at the airport stating that travelers must present government-issued photo identification.  I knew that wasn't true, and I didn't show ID. I neither caused trouble nor slowed things down for other travelers when I asserted my right to travel without checking in with the government by identifying myself; I was taken out of line to be screened along with other "selectees".

After returning home, I filed a complaint with TSA.  I received a response from Jeanne Oliver, Associate Director of TSA Office of the Executive Secretariat.  She did not indicate that TSA would fix the problem, but did confirm that if a traveler is "unwilling or unable to produce a valid form of ID, the traveler is required to undergo additional screening at the checkpoint to gain access to the secured area of the airport."  People who show ID receive a less-thorough screening.  Any time saved when people volunteer to show ID comes at the cost of less effectively checking them for dangerous items.

We're being lied to about federal air travel policies by airport security at KCI and other locations, and it's not making us any safer.

Government agents requiring people to show ID before boarding a flight wouldn't make air travel any safer.  It's relatively easy to get a fake ID, and regardless of how much technology we put into ID cards, a criminal will be able to purchase a fake one or steal someone else's identity and get a real ID with his picture and the other person's name.

We can and do call upon TSA to ensure safe air travel by preventing people from carrying dangerous items onto flights.  TSA's current practice of allowing people who show ID through security with less  screening than other people receive contributes to a false sense of security, breeding complacency among passengers, crew, and TSA agents.

I acknowledge that the inconvenience of showing ID is trivial.  My concern is that a requirement to show ID would allow the government to monitor and restrict our travel.  Our courts have established that   people in this country have the right to travel and associate without being monitored or stopped by the government unless they have been convicted of committing a crime or are suspected -- with good reason -- of having committed a crime.  They have ruled that we cannot set up roadblocks and checkpoints to stop everyone who passes just to catch the few who have done something wrong, or to find the few who are suspected of intending to do something wrong.

Recent Congressional testimony suggests that over 900,000 names are now on the United States' so-called "terrorist watch list".  Many people who have found themselves on the list are U.S. citizens who have no ties to any terrorist organization.  There is no appeals process for those who have been blacklisted.  We are not allowed to know who is on the list, who put them there, or why they were put on it.

If these people pose a danger to others, why don't we go arrest them instead of waiting for them to present themselves at the airport, then hassling them or preventing them from flying before sending them on their way?

Even if we could prune the list so that it included only people who actually pose a "known" threat, potential terrorists could probe the system by sending people on innocent trips, observing which ones were subjected to additional screening, then later sending the other people on a real terrorist mission.  Restricting travel based on an ID check simply cannot improve security.

People can show their ID to whomever they want, whenever they want to do so, if it makes them feel safer.  My doing so doesn't make me feel any safer.  When a government agent asks me to show my papers or searches me, I feel *un*safe.  It reminds me of descriptions of life in the former USSR, where identification was required upon demand, movement was restricted, and people either kept quiet and did as they were told, or risked disappearing into the night, never to be heard from again.

When I see security guards in airports wearing what look like police uniforms and demanding identification, and police on our streets wearing what look like military uniforms, driving DHS-grant-funded armored vehicles, marching in riot gear with machine guns, pepper-spraying and
Tasing peaceful demonstrators, it makes me feel like I live in what is approaching a totalitarian state.

Communicating with Highly Physically Disabled People

I just finished reading the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It is a memoir dictated one letter at a time by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a stroke victim who suffered from locked-in syndrome.

Jean-Dominique was only able to communicate by blinking his left eye. An alphabet was developed that was re-ordered from the usual alphanumeric ordering, so that the most frequently used letters were at the beginning. To communicate, the speaker would cite each letter and Jean-Dominique would blink when the appropriate letter was said. Slowly, words would be built up and sentences would eventually form, conveying meaning. It was a tedious process and it had its drawbacks:

" "Want to play hangman?" asks Theophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic. But my communication system disqualifies repartee: the keenest rapier grows dull and falls flat when it takes several minutes to thrust it home. By the time you strike, even you no longer understand what had seemed so witty before you started to dictate it letter by letter. So the rule is to avoid impulsive sallies. It deprives conversation of its sparkle, all those gems you bat back and forth like a ball - and I count this forced lack of humor one of the great drawbacks of my condition." (Pages 70 and 71, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)

Since Jean-Dominique was a native French speaker, the letter frequencies in his special alphabet were based on the French language. The alphabet looked like this:

E S A R I N T U L O M D P C F B V H G J Q Z Y X K W

For the English language, the letter frequencies (which can be found here) would be:

E T A O I N S H R D L C U M W F G Y P B V K J X Q Z

It occurred to me that there had to be a more efficient manner to do this. I see two problems:

• It takes a great deal of time to get to a letter deep into the alphabet. 
• The deeper in the alphabet you go, the more likely it is that an error.

In order to improve communications speed, I came up with this alternate "tabular" method:

E	A	N	D	W
T	I	R	M	B
O	H	U	P	X
S	C	Y	J	PH
L	G	K	Z	LY
F	V	Q	QU	RY

Note: Since the standard Latin alphabet has 26 letters, a six by five table left four empty spots. I chose letter pairs to fill those spots. The letter pairs were guessed at, as my brief searching was unable to turn up any letter pair frequency tables. I have no doubt that an exhaustive lexical analysis of the English language would turn up the true top four letter pairs. Some pairs like IE and EA are very common, but they are pretty cheap to create one letter at a time, so it's not worth using them in the far bottom corner where it takes more steps to get to them.

This alternative method works as a simple Cartesian coordinate system. That's fancy mathematics speak for "select the row and then select the column". To find the letter M, the letter selector starts at the top row and works down row by row, until the patient blinks when the second row is chosen. This means the patient could be interested in the letters T, I, R, M or B. The selector would then work across the columns until the patient blinks when the M character is chosen. In total, six stops were made to get to the M character. The old system would have required fourteen; more than twice as many. In addition, by locking the selector into a given row, the possibility for error is greatly reduced. If the selector picks the wrong row or misses the target letter, they will know they've done so because the patient never blinks by the end of the row. With the old system, the selector would have to go to the end of the entire alphabet to find that they've missed the letter.

To give you a better idea of the benefit of this system, here's the same table with the relative costs of getting to each letter added. The letter represents the target letter, the number represents the number of steps, or "cost", required to get to that letter and the number in parenthesis is the cost the old system required to get to that letter:

E - 2 (1)	A - 3 (3)	N - 4 (6)	D - 5 (10)	W - 6 (15)
T - 3 (2)	I - 4 (5)	R - 5 (9)	M - 6 (14)	B - 7 (20)
O - 4 (4)	H - 5 (8)	U - 6 (13)	P - 7 (19)	X - 8 (24)
S - 5 (7)	C - 6 (12)	Y - 7 (18)	J - 8 (23)	PH - 9 (27)
L - 6 (11)	G - 7 (17)	K - 8 (22)	Z - 9 (26)	LY - 10 (29)
F - 7 (16)	V - 8 (21)	Q - 9 (25)	QU - 10 (38)	RY - 11 (27)

Some immediate observations are that the letters E and T actually require one more step in this system than the old. In addition O and A cost the same in both systems. However, it should be noted that the overall cost savings is dramatic when you start creating whole words. For example. Let's take the following sentence (chosen from a random poster I saw at my Son's elementary school):

SEE JANE RUN

The cost breakdown is as follows:

Word	Old Cost	New Cost
See	9	9
Jane	33	17
Run	28	15

Thus with the old system, it costs 70 letter stops to spell the test sentence. With the system I am proposing, it only takes 41. It is also important to note that the word SEE costs the same in both systems, which is an example of how the extra step to find the letters E and T are quickly absorbed by economies elsewhere.

Potential improvements on this would be to re-arrange the alphabet on a per patient basis. Since everyone uses a slightly different subset of their native language's words, their letter frequencies would likely be slightly different. If available, recordings and writings from the patient created prior to becoming disabled could be analyzed to alter the table layout. However, after the patient starts using the table, I would suggest that it not be altered unless absolutely necessary, as a familiarity will have been built up that will be difficult to overcome to take advantage of newer efficiencies. It would be interesting to study whether or not patients adapt their vocabulary to the table, thus removing any need to alter the table to introduce efficiencies after being introduced to it.

A potential objection to altering the table on a per patient basis prior to being introduced to it, would be that each patient should use the same letter table to keep communications uniform. I would overcome this objection with the idea that patients will not be using this system to talk directly to each other. This system would only be meant to facilitate communication between a disabled patient and an able bodied person who can work the board. The able bodied person working the board, should be able to adapt to different boards for different patients, especially considering that the incremental improvements in communications speed will far outweigh any inconvenience to the board operator. In addition, there is no reason why the intermediary could not be a computer, thus allowing similarly disabled patients to communicate with each other in real time. I wonder if it would be a positive thing for a patient to share their feelings with someone in the same situation?

It is important to note that this system is only useful for persons who already have the ability to read and can process information relatively normally. It is also only useful to those that have the ability to consistently gesture in a singular fashion, such as an eye blink, or some other "single bit" manner. If multiple gestures can be clearly and consistently mastered, there are much faster ways of communicating than the system that I am proposing. It would be very interesting to be able to study systems that apply to various numbers of feedback bits from the patient. As a general rule, the greater number of feedback bits available from the patient, the more robust and efficient the communication. I should coin the term CFB - Consistent Feedback Bits. A basic eye blink would be one CFB. An eye blink and a finger twitch, would be two CFBs and so on. The various systems of communicating could be indexed by CFBs. A specialist could assess the patients CFBs and perhaps use therapies to expand the number of CFBs, and then a system of communication could be chosen that best fits their unique situation. Again, many of these systems of communications would fall apart if the patient is simply cognitively unable to process information.

I believe that this system requires the ability to see out of at least one eye, but could possibly be used with a blind patient as long as they could hear well enough to memorize the table and give "single bit" feedback as they were learning. If the patient were blind and deaf, it may still be possible to communicate as long as they had relatively normal information processing abilities and could feedback to indicate to their teacher where they were in the learning process.

PZ Myers: The Courtiers Reply

I found this to be absolutely brilliant in its construction and execution. It echoes a sentiment I have often felt when reading logical deconstructions of Atheist works by inconvenienced believers. Except in this case, it puts into words what I have only been able to internally articulate in vague emotional terms.

Reposted from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php:

There's a common refrain in the criticisms of Dawkins' The God Delusion^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)} that I've taken to categorizing with my own private title—it's so common, to the point of near-unanimous universality, that I've decided to share it with you all, along with a little backstory that will help you to understand the name.

I call it the Courtier's Reply. It refers to the aftermath of a fable.

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.

Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

I'm afraid that when I read H. Allen Orr's criticism of The God Delusion in the NY Review of Books, all that popped into my head was a two-word rebuttal: Courtier's Reply. You would be amazed at how many of the anti-Dawkins arguments can be filed away under that category. That's all you'll get from me on Orr's complaint—it's another Courtier's Reply. If you want a more detailed dissection, Jason Rosenhouse provides it.

Poor Choice of Words...

This unemployment benefits appeal was forwarded to me by the writer's sister. I've redacted all of the identifying information with X's to protect the innocent (and the guilty). While I do not condone violence, including threats of violence, perceived or otherwise, I can empathize with her frustration...

Okay, so my sister...whose name has been partially changed, wrote the letter below which earned her a call from the XXXXXXXX County Bomb Squad Sheriff today.  The funny part (besides the fact that they called her) is that it's been two weeks since she faxed this to the unemployment office.  The sheriff said that he sympathized with her letter, as did all the other's who had read it.

Enjoy...                        
XXXXXXX

Ima D. Bomber
XXXX XXXXXXX XXXX
XXXXX, WA XXXXX
(XXX) XXX-XXXX
SS# XXX-XX-XXXX
Decision to appeal:  denied benefits
Reason for appeal:  I believe I had a "good cause for quitting".

        My decision for quitting my job is quite clear.  My husband was laid off from work, we were unable to pay the rent on my single income and we were subsequently evicted from our home.  As I had no way to house or feed my children, I was forced to separate from my husband and travel across the state to move in with my sister's family (including my mother who also resides at that address).
      
        I put in my two week notice to my employer, with every intention of fulfilling my obligation. As I found that telling this woman I hardly knew that I was being evicted from my home was far too embarrassing, I told her that I was moving to my sister's to help care for my ailing mother. This was not entirely honest but, as my mother suffers from anxiety and a heart condition, I found this a more acceptable reason for my departure During my lunch break on 11/19/07, however, I received a distressing call from my children regarding a lack of food in my house and knowing that I had no way to pay for groceries, I knew I would have to move more quickly than planned.  At this time I had finally reached my breaking point and had a complete emotional melt down. Knowing that I could not return to work with my face blotchy and my eyes full of tears, I told the supervisor that I was suffering from a migraine headache and could no longer work that day and, furthermore, I had to pack my belongings quickly so I would not be able to return to work for my remaining days.  Although your office found this reason for quitting my job both "plausible and/or compelling", it did not fit into one of your nine clearly defined reasons for "good cause" and my benefits were denied.                                         

        Since that time I have gone through a number of emotions.  Starting with utter despair, continuing on to a feeling that I can only relate as a suicide bomber and finally to an almost uncontrollable anger.  I am unable to make my car payment or my car insurance payment and will be unable to get to a job, even when I get one. So, yesterday, I found myself applying for state assistance.  Now I have gone from being a productive member of society that pays my taxes, to a user of state resources set aside for those who can not provide for themselves.  Now YOUR taxes are being used to support me even though I am quite capable to supporting myself, but needed a bit of help to get by.  I believed I was paying into an unemployment system that would provide for me should this unfortunate event arise and I find that they are not.                             

        I have been paying taxes since I began my first job at age sixteen and have only once before received unemployment benefits.  During that time I had been laid off because the government did not find it necessary to supply enough funds to provide my patients, the mentally ill, with a nurse.  My union fought bitterly and used my story as a compelling reason for the government to stand up and take action to help those suffering from mental illness.  Again, I find that the government has no problem taking my money, but has no intentions of using it to help me or my fellow Americans in any way, other than to support immigrants (noting that all government forms come with a variety languages to choose from) and a war against those who wish to immigrate here.  I am proud to be an American.  I know a lot of them and they are generally a good people.  The people in charge of the bigger picture, however, are obviously taking advantage of our general good nature and at some point this MUST come to a stop.

        I have considered bombing target areas, but find that I do not have the stomach to kill innocent people like yourself who are just trying to do their own job and take care of their own families.  Nor do I have the availability or knowledge to use a weapon large enough to make any impact that would draw the governments' attention.  I have seriously contemplated suicide and hope that you will think of me whenever you hear of someone who has literally come to the end of their rope.  The irony in all of this is that if I proceeded down either of these paths I would probably end up in prison or a mental hospital and either way the American tax dollar would be paying to support me even though the government could not provide for a few months unemployment that I paid for in advance.

        So, if this letter falls into your hands and you find yourself saying, "I would love to make a change, but I don't have that kind of power." do not despair.  I have been in your position, wishing I could do more for my patients with mental illness and finding that the government has more money wasted in meetings, paper work and red tape than in truly trying to find what will work best to aid the American people and implementing it.   All I ask is that you pass this letter on to your boss and if he/she finds himself/herself saying, "This is totally out of my hands." then they should continue to pass this letter up the chain of command.  I know eventually this will fall into the hands of someone who says, "It is my job to make sure that my boss is not bothered with this kind of thing."  To that person I would like to say, "Please file this between your butt cheeks.  Because you are part of the problem and not part of the solution!"


Sincerely,

Ima D. Bomber (aka #XXX-XX-XXXX)

CentOS 5 + Tomcat5 + Java 6

I just installed a CentOS 5 server and I wanted to run Tomcat5 with the Sun Java 6 JRE, not the JRE that's packaged with CentOS 5. Naturally everything broke. It took about an hour of poking and debugging, but in the end the fix was surprisingly simple. Here's how I did it:

• Removed all of the original java packages (java-*, gcc-java glib-java)
  
• Installed the JDK 6 RPM downloaded from the Sun website.
• Create two symbolic links:
  
• ln -s /usr/java/latest /usr/lib/jvm/java
• ln -s /usr/java/latest /usr/java/default-exports

That's it.

If you want to run Tomcat5 on port 80, it needs to have root privileges to bind to a low order port. In its default configuration Tomcat5 cannot do this because it is a pure Java application and must run cross-platform. Dropping privileges is not platform agnostic so Tomcat5 does not support it.

It is dangerous to run Tomcat5 as root, so only do it if you know what you are doing! I took this approach on this server because it is an intranet application server that is not exposed to the outside world. Do not do this if you are exposing a Tomcat server to the outside world...

Here's what to do:

• Update the /etc/tomcat5/server.xml file and look for <Connector port="8080" Change the 8080 to 80.
• In the file /etc/sysconfig/tomcat5 change "#TOMCAT_USER=tomcat" to "TOMCAT_USER=root"

If you are exposing your server to the outside world, your best bet is to do it in a way that it is only root while it is binding to the low order port. Here is a tutorial that appears to explain how to do this. Your other option is to run Apache on the same server and use it as a proxy. The upside to this approach is that you can use Apache to serve static content, like images, more efficiently than with Tomcat.