A History Lesson

    In many western cultures the date of April 1st is celebrated in a strangely weird and mysteriously odd way as well as being peculiarly unusual. Although this day is not an official holiday, it is most notable for tricksters playing pranks and practical jokes on each other and also pulling off misleading hoaxes and deceptive ruses. This is no joke. Seriously.

    One might ask why we are doing this and what the origin is of this widely practiced custom. If one does, one is stuffed in a broom closet and being called a fuddy-duddy. Now that we got rid of one, I will tell you.

    According to many historians there are a variety of possible historical origins. Professor Joseph Boskik, a notorious jokester of the Boston University has put forward a theory that the practice began in ancient Rome, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. A group of court jesters and fools, better known as the US Congress, declared to the Emperor that they could run the Roman Empire better then he did. Constantine then allowed one of the jesters named Dave Barry to become Emperor for a day, and the jester decreed that the day should be filled with absurdity.

    Then there is a reference in the story The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, part of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The story recounts the adventures of two fools, a fox and a rooster who go to Hollywood and make it big. All this takes place “Thritty days and two” from the beginning of March, which of course is April 1st. Hollywood having more then its fair share of fools seems to confirm the historical accuracy of this story.

    In 1564 King Charles IX of France decreed that January 1st would be the start of the New Year, instead of on April 1st as was the custom in that time. Some of the French people did not hear of this decree and celebrated New Year on April 1st anyway, having parties, dropping balls on Times Square and generally getting stupefyingly drunk on wine with too much antifreeze in it. These people were widely ridiculed and called poisson d’avril (poisoned April) and dead fish were placed on their backs. I would try to explain that, but I can’t.

    I have discovered the real origin. It lies in the Netherlands, where in 1572 much of the country was under the rule of Spain’s King Phillip II. Many Dutch rebels, also called Geuzen (meaning beggars), managed to seize the small but strategically important town of Den Briel from the Spanish Duke of Alba, the commander of the Spanish army. That is why Alba lost his glasses (Bril being the Dutch word for glasses), and the Dutch celebrate this with humor on April 1st when many Dutch children are singing 1 April, kikker in je bil, die d’r nooit meer uit wil (April 1st, frog in your butt that won’t come out). I would try to explain that, but I can’t. Still, this is no joke. Seriously.

 

    Remembering

    For me it was Arthur C. Clarke’s 1979 novel “The Fountains of Paradise.”. I read it when I was in my early teens; old enough to understand the concepts of the science and technology of a space elevator as laid out in the book and at the same time young and impressionable enough to be fully enthralled by the story and its implications. I will never forget that book.

    It was one of the first SciFi novels I ever read, and afterwards I developed a voracious appetite for anything Science Fiction. I quickly discovered the other two masters of the Golden Age of SciFi and Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke became my new heroes, quickly followed by many others. To this day when I have the time to sit down and read it will be Science Fiction.

    In later years what struck me is that the advancing science turned the originally fictional idea of the space elevator into a real possibility. In the novel Clarke envisions a hyper filament; a form of a one-dimensional diamond crystal, being the only material strong enough to be used for a cable some 36000 kilometers long, linking Earth with a space station in geosynchronous orbit. These days thousands of scientists around the world are experimenting with carbon nanotubes, and commenting on its remarkable tensile strength. Now the concept of a Space Elevator is actively being investigated by NASA.

    This was hardly the first time Arthur C. Clarke envisioned the future. He started back in 1945 by publishing an article outlining the concept of the geosynchronous communication satellite. In his 1973 novel “Rendezvous with Rama” he predicted “Project Spaceguard”, an organization dedicated to tracking potential Earth-threatening asteroids. Project Spaceguard became reality in 1995.

    Earlier today, March 19th 2008 Arthur C. Clarke passed away at the Apollo Hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka. One of the sharpest minds ever to roam this Earth, with one of the gentlest hearts, the last of the Masters of SciFi has gone. Remember him, and the Fountains of Paradise will be forever flowing.

 

You decide for yourself. See the video.

 

    A History Lesson

    Every 1460 days or so, we add in another day, just for kicks it seems. It is commonly called February 29th, or leap day. Uncommonly it is called the bissextile day (read that word again, just so you don’t confuse it with another similar sounding word). A year, in which such a day occurs, is called a leap year or an intercalary year (which sounds like…anyway, let’s move on).

    February 29th occurs every year which is evenly divisible by four, with the exception of the century years, ending in two zeroes, which are not divisible by 400. Leap seconds are added on average every 18 months. Rumor has it one scientist suggested years divisible by 4000 should not be leap years either, but he was lynched by an angry math-challenged mob.

    The leap day has a long history starting way back with the Julian calendar which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, just before he had a salad. In the Julian calendar the day following February 23rd, known as Terminalia for the worship of the god Terminus, was to be doubled. That day and the day after were to be regarded as one day. And February 24th was called ‘bis sextum’ which means twice 6th (make sense to anyone?). This single day would have 48 hours, instead of the normal 24. Clock makers protested, but were ignored when they missed their appointment.

    The leap day moved to February 29th in the modern Gregorian calendar, when it was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Pope wasn’t quite happy with the old Julian calendar because it’s year was too long, and the day on which Easter was celebrated kept changing too much. Basically, the Pope wanted the holidays to come sooner. A noble thought, that. 

    In addition the Pope decided to drop 10 days from the calendar. The last day of the Julian calendar was to be October 4th 1582, and the next day, the first day of the Gregorian calendar was to be October 15th, 1582. This caused massive amounts of sleep deprivation all around Europe. Historians say it was done to make the seasons occur at the right times, although I suspect the Pope wanted to spend 10 days in bed with his mistress. 

    The purpose for the leap day is so we may celebrate New Year's with the Earth at approximately the same position as last time. Even though we are too drunk to notice what position we are in anyway. Unfortunately, all this leaping about doesn’t quite do it. To add to the confusion, scientists introduced the leap second. These occur on average every 18 months. It is unknown when the next leap second will occur. Although they have confirmed it will not be in 2008, which is unfortunate because I could use the extra sleep.

    All this calendaring seems pretty arbitrary to me. So, why do we not change the calendar to have 73 weeks of 5 days each, with a 4 day weekend and add in an extra holiday whenever we feel like it? I’d suggest it, but I am afraid to be lynched by an angry math-challenged mob.

 

    Florida Power & what?

    In October of 2005 hurricane Wilma ravaged South Florida with 120 mph winds, caused more then 20 billion dollars in damage and left 3.2 million FP&L customers without electricity.

    In February 2008 an overheating switch in a power substation near Miami, costing a few hundred dollars, left 4 million people without electricity, under a light 5 mph breeze.

 

        On being a sprig.

    At last count the Technorati.com website was tracking more then 112 million blogs. Again, one hundred and twelve million blogs, written by a hundred million people all around the world from every culture and all walks of life. Some people maintain multiple blogs; other blogs are maintained by several people. And more blogs are added to the World Wide Web each day, although some are abandoned as well. 

    Gartner analysts have stated that the number of active blogs reached its peak in 2007. They expect the number of new blogs to equal the number of abandoned blogs. And all those abandoned blogs will just add to the websam (web flotsam). If a blog falls over in the blogosphere forest while a hundred million other bloggers are screaming for attention, does anybody notice? Does anybody care?

    There are many types of blogs, with pictures, videos, pod casts and writings in every style imaginable. Some blogs are the original web log diaries, where people describe their own daily lives; others are political, artful, environmental, sentimental, mental, anything goes. Some of these bloggers are serious journalists reporting serious issues. Others are pretend journalists that can not possibly be taken seriously.

    The quality of all those blogs is just as diverse as the subjects. Some blogs are the equivalent of an evening at the Joneses, being forced to watch a slideshow of their vacation snapshots (shiver) while wondering what time it will be socially acceptable to leave. Some blogs are informative, others are educational or entertaining. There are even a select few jewels that are all those at the same time. Some bloggers don’t even take the time to run their drivel through a spellchecker (you know who you are!), while others post works of remarkable compositions, elegant style and wonderful prose (no, I didn’t mean you!) (no, I didn’t mean myself either).

    Many blogs have advertising on their sites. And indeed many bloggers are desperately trying to increase traffic to their site, so they may glean some income from those adverts. Although in reality few even make enough to offset their costs. To this purpose the only real winners are those sites catering to the bloggers by offering advertising services, or schemes to increase traffic, such as the projectwonderful.com website. Some sites are nothing more then a thinly veiled form of click fraud. Many link exchange sites are little more then an I-click-on-yours-if-you-click-on-mine scheme. Sure, it increases traffic, but it remains to be seen if it increases actual readers.

    So, why are we doing this? Why am I doing this? Honestly, I am not all that sure. But I will admit I get a kick out of people who are actually reading my posts. Some don’t like it, some do. But just one visitor reading my work and appreciating it, makes me feel like I accomplished something, however small it may be.

    Maybe that’s all blogging is about. Rambling about whatever you feel like rambling about and perhaps some day, you actually hit on something that somebody finds valuable. And maybe that’s enough, just being a little sprig in this giant blogosphere forest.

    Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

    Not so long ago, in the house I lived in as a kid, we had a telephone. It was simple phone, with a rotary dial, if you remember what that is. If you wanted to talk to me, you could come over to my house, or call me on the phone, or write me a letter. Those were happy times, back in my long lost merrily squandered youth. Aaah…memories, light the corners of my mind… Uh, where was I? Oh yeah…

    I remember how excited the whole family got when my father brought home a second phone for the upstairs. It was an old phone he had pilfered from the company where they had just replaced all phones with newer models. Now we could transfer calls between the downstairs and upstairs. We kids just loved playing with this marvel of modern technology. I remember calling a friend from the downstairs phone, just so I could transfer the call upstairs and impress him. He was not impressed.

    Now, just half a generation later, I have a home address and a postbox address. I have a cordless home phone with four handsets, business phone with wireless headset, and a brand new Nokia cell phone, all with follow-mode, caller-id, call-waiting, voice mail and numerous other features I haven’t figured out yet and probably never will. I have a two-way pager with over 800 pager numbers programmed into it. I can receive faxes at home and at work. I have high-speed internet, over a dozen different email addresses, three instant messaging ids, and four Bluetooth devices. Voice-Over-IP, and inter-continental video conferencing are nothing new to me. Oh…and I have a blog. And I am not nearly as connected as many other people in this high-tech day and age.

    The costs of long distance calls nowadays are significantly less then when I played with that upstairs phone. Can you imagine paying $7 (with inflation that would be over 25 current day dollars) per minute for an overseas call with several seconds lag time, and a sound quality so bad that most of the call consists of “What? Can you repeat that? Hello, can you hear me?”

    These days, many people suffer from what is called connectivity overload. We are all too easily reached at any time day or night. Often times we find people wanting our attention when we are knee deep in a task that requires serious focus. Taking a few moments to say “I am busy, can we talk later?” is enough to lose that focus. As a result our productivity declines. Our attention span gets shorter by the day. And hair loss reaches epic proportions (my bald spot is getting decidedly pronounced).

    In a 2007 survey by PEW Internet, almost half of all Americans who only occasionally use modern electronic gadgetry stated that the pervasive connectivity is burdensome and they feel hassled by it. It is estimated that the US economy in 2006 suffered 650 billion dollars in lost productivity because of connectivity overload. 

    In addition we are raising our children in this environment. From their early years on they have access to high speed internet, their own cell phones, mp3 players blaring music at all hours of the day and the TV showing mindless advertising blurbs while they are trying to do their homework. Multi-tasking is a way of life for our children, not an achievement reached at later age, such as for my generation. I can’t help but wonder how this new generation is going to turn out.

    While multi-tasking is supposed to improve our productivity, our brains aren’t really up to it. I am sure mine isn’t. Is it any wonder I screen calls on all my phones, employ spam filters on all email addresses, have a firewall on my internet connection, set myself ‘away’ on instant messaging, and purposefully let the battery on my pager drain so I can say “Oops, sorry you couldn’t reach me." 

    I saw a rotary phone on sale the other day, marked as Vintage and priced outrageously. Do you think they’ll accept cell phones as a trade-in?
 

Perhaps a Haiku would work better?

There once was a politician from Nantucket,
who went to Washington with a bucket.
He tried to clean up,
but quickly gave up,
and said "You know these politicians can't even write proper limericks."

 

HD DVD is dead, long live Blu-Ray.

    The war is over. Yesterday Toshiba announced it would stop producing HD DVD equipment. And thus Blu-Ray has won. Although not as expensive as the war in Iraq, Toshiba, Microsoft, Paramount and Universal are still going to have to cope with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses due to their support of the losing side.

    A war that has been waged for several years has seen many battles. But after HD DVD lost the battle of Warner Bros to victorious Blu-Ray, an unconditional surrender was all but inevitable. And Friday’s announcement that Wal-Mart was going to support Blu-Ray was merely the death-knell.

    The true winners in this conflict are you, me, and all the other consumers. Acceptance of the new DVD technologies has been delayed by an estimated 2 years because of this war. So, let us rejoice as we won war.

 

Fighting Comcast’s duality brutality.

    A new piece of legislation, "The Internet Preservation Act of 2008", has been introduced to support Net Neutrality. Although the bill itself is rather general and narrow in scope, if passed, it will have severe repercussions to internet providers (read Comcast) which throttle or block certain types of traffic.

    As US Congressman Edward J. Markey stated: "Internet freedom generally embodies the notion that consumers and content providers should be free to send, receive, access and use the lawful applications, content, and services of their choice on broadband networks, possess the effective right to attach and use non-harmful devices to use in conjunction with their broadband services, and that content providers not be subjected to unreasonably discriminatory practices by broadband network providers.". Trying to translate it from politicospeak, he states “Comcast bugger off”.

    As you may have heard, Comcast is screwing with their customers internet use by throttling bit torrent traffic, starting some nine months ago. Of course Comcast denied doing this even after the entire world had already verified it to be true. But then again, big corporations don’t have to be truthful; they just have to make money. In the meantime Comcast is the target of a class action lawsuit as well as an investigation by the FCC. As a result, Comcast recently updated its terms of service to better correspond with how they were actually screwing their customer’s.

    In the meantime however, the internet community in itself is still unclear if Net Neutrality is a good thing or not. Some say that Net Neutered would stifle content providers abilities to innovate, upgrade and improve their services as well as slowing acceptance of new technologies by customers. The opposition says exactly the same; that ISP’s will be unable to innovate, upgrade and improve their networks.

    It seems to me the truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle, and it is best to leave well enough alone. Except Comcast of course.