Monthly Archives: November 2006

Security

Illegal underage dreams

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I thought this comment on Bruce’s blog was actually quite good:

I am an underage illegal immigrant, but I’ve lived here in the United States for most of my life, and my parents have worked very hard to do everything right, and to this day they have not broken any laws, or been in any type of legal matter. I just think it is unfair that I’m treated the way I am. Yes this isn’t my native country, but it’s not my fault that I’m here. I was bought here as a child, and couldn’t fight my parents decision. It was come or die, and I mean to everyone, no matter were you’re from, life is something presious. I’m a great student in school, and no one can tell me apart from an illegal immigrant, or if I was born here. Why not? Because just like everyone else I want to be someone in life.

A fine contrast to the stories of twilight roundups by the “ICE” squads.

History, Poetry, Security

The Paris Review and DRM

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There are a number of historic interviews being posted online by the Paris Review. For example, you can read a 1960 discussion with Robert Frost:

So many talk, I wonder how falsely, about what it costs them, what agony it is to write. I’ve often been quoted: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.� But another distinction I made is: however sad, no grievance, grief without grievance. How could I, how could anyone have a good time with what cost me too much agony, how could they? What do I want to communicate but what a hell of a good time I had writing it?

There are almost as many contradictory suggestions for writers as there are interviews in the collection. You know what they say about opinions…

I also noted this awesome start and abrupt end to the Graham Greene page:

GREENE: “No, one never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one cannot remember what toothpaste they use, what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge: minor ones may be photographed.”

NOTE: We regret that we have been unable to obtain web rights to this interview. We have worked hard to make this archive as complete as possible, and hope you’ll forgive us the omission.

The Editors

Curious that the magazine does not have rights to its own interview.

Poetry, Security

NOAA Poetry

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NOAA offers some interesting insights in their “Poetry Corner“:

What do poetry, engineers, and scientists have in common? The NOAA Poetry Corner, home of weather poems, survey poems, and ocean poems written by the men and women who served in NOAA or its ancestor agencies. […] All these poems help tell the story of the people and the ancestor agencies of NOAA, showing a love for the work and a love for the environment in which the men and women of NOAA’s ancestor agencies worked….

Here is my favorite so far:

Oceanography is dangerous

by Arch E. Benthic, a.k.a. Harris B. Stewart
“The Id of the Squid,� 1970

The Exec has spent two weeks in traction,
The Chief has a cut on his head,
The Doctor is missing in action
With a burn that has sent him to bed.
Various others have bruises
And legs and backs that are sore.
The dangerous parts of these cruises
Are the motorbikes ridden ashore.

In: AOML Keynotes, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 1-4.

I don’t follow the squid reference, but the punch-line is funny. Wonder if NOAA pays a bonus for poems?

Security

Protein Cell-net to run on PS3

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Scientific purposes for distributed computing is now being explored on gaming devices, according to Seed. Sony’s ironically named “cell” chip will be working on how the study of proteins in disease:

Volunteers would download a program giving access to the PlayStation’s superfast Cell chip, which the researchers would use when the gamer is not playing. The processed information would then be sent back via the Internet. […] “A piece of research in this field could typically take up to five years–using the processing of PlayStation 3 could potentially reduce this to just three months,” [Stanford Professor Vijay] Pande said in a statement.

It seems that over 400,000 PS3 units have already sold in just a few weeks time and another 600,000 are expected to sell by the end of the year. Wow. That’s a lot of processing power if you can harness it together. But my first question is how does someone opt-in to the research? In other words, how does a PS3 owner distinguish the good causes from the bad?