This saved me several hours today vs. manually converting one file at a time in a gui tool.

sudo apt-get install gdal-bin
for I in `ls *.shp | sed -e 's?\.shp$??'`; do ogr2ogr -f KML -t_srs "EPSG:4326" doc.kml ${I}.shp ${I}; zip ${I}.kmz doc.kml; rm -f doc.kml; done

After my recent response to an e-mail forward, some members of my immediate family have expressed being thankful for having me around adding a voice of reason and wisdom to the mix. I am now being summoned to write responses to other forwards they receive, starting with this one today.

---

----- Original Message -----=20
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 8:23 PM
Subject: Obama - the Muslim


This is one of the scariest UTubes I've ever seen.

Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:41 PM
Subject: Short Youtube


http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=3DtCAffMSWSzY#t=3D28=20

---

There isn't really anything in the e-mail to respond to. There is only a link to a video.

If you look at the video closely you can see that they have him superimposed over a still image of two flags, and it looks like they have an image of a podium in front of him. It's a really good video edit; you barely notice where they've cut it together.

If the creators of this video were being honest, not only would they have not photo-shopped him into a different setting, they would have cited the sources of the material and explained when and where each part was from. That way you could go and watch the different parts in context, find out more about what was said, draw other people's attention to it, etc.

But this video isn't meant to be a starting point for further research. It isn't meant to be considered rationally, explored and verified, etc. It's meant to solicit an emotional response, which clearly it has.



I've attached an image which I think will help to illustrate this point. The image is meant to support the popular idea that George Bush is a blundering unintelligent person. A little research shows that in actuality he is a Yale graduate and former F-104 pilot. In the original of this image, the cord is attached to the other end of the phone, but that's all it takes to change the meaning entirely. The video from the link is a much more sophisticated version of this same technique.

If anyone is actually interested in the subject discussed in the video, there is some good information available at standard internet sources such as snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

Recently I was discussing some technical details of programming languages with a friend who is a software engineer by day. It came up that a big part of the way I do web applications means they take more memory and time to run. This lead to a discussion spanning several hours about the right way to talk to a database and other such things.

I tried and largely failed to explain that for the projects I do, it almost never makes sense for me to worry about making the software run faster. My time costs a thousand times more per hour than the server's, and my users have vastly more compute power than they need. Computers are cheap, fast, abundant, and replaceable. There is only one of me. If I can build the software in less of my time, or make it more readable, beautiful, or fun to write at the expense of the computer's time, I consider that a victory.

There are some exceptions; places where I do think about purely performance related things. For example, I put indexes on my databases where appropriate. But even here it isn't about making the software more efficient for the computer. This is one place where I can take a moment of my time to make the software run so much faster that I or the users might notice.

It wasn't until much later, after the conversation was over, that I remembered this quote from the creator of the Ruby programming language:

Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, "By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something." They are focusing on machines. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves.
- Yukihiro Matsumoto, The Philosophy of Ruby

complete with typo.

A second response rolled in. I think maybe Scottie here must have thought I was from California or something, and my statements could thus be dismissed on that basis. It would be quite pointless I think to try to counter this notion with logic. Conveniently I was able to simply address this primate tribal alliance question with a primate tribal alliance response.

---

Josh! When's the last time you were in Texas? Just curious...

---

Scottie,

I'm proud to say I am a native Texan.

I was born in Texas and I've lived here all my life. I say "howdy" when greeting friends and strangers. I consider domestic beer to mean Lone Star, Shiner, or Pearl; imported beer means Budweiser, Miller, etc. I know how to fire a gun, and I know what rattlesnake tastes like.

So even though I have these foreign-sounding ideas like thinking that "liberty and justice for all" includes brown people and people of different religions, I didn't pick them up living off in some blue state. I got this way right here in the great state of Texas.

In my previous entry I posted my response to an e-mail I received about Muslims being appointed to government positions.

I expected to catch a lot of flak for this, but so far I have only received a single polite rebuttal.

---

Dear Josh, Were you born after 9/11? Or maybe after the FIRST attack on the World Trade Center? Granted, not ALL devout Muslims are terrorists, but from our past encounters with these type of people, we haven't had real good luck with them. And from what I read, you are defending people who want nothing more than to change how we view freedom since they have NEVER known it. Get a grip young stranger, and stand up for your country first!

---

Vicki,

I am old enough to have been concerned about international terrorism before 2001. Concerning the two Arab Americans mentioned in the original message.. what I have read so far about Kareem Shora shows that he has specifically worked to preserve freedom. Presumably you didn't just dismiss him because of his race or religion, and you went on to research his actions as an individual citizen, and that's when you concluded that he was trying to change how we view freedom. If so, please share with me what you have found.

You are right about Arif Alikhan though. He's never known freedom... he was born in Canada.

I try to operate under the assumption that people who send me e-mail know what they are doing. So for example, if you put me and a large number of other people in the CC: field instead of the BCC: field, I take that as an invitation to share my thoughts with everyone else that received the message. If that's not what you wanted, then of course you would have used BCC.

This is exactly what happened today when I received a message from a family member who was concerned about Muslims being appointed to positions in the Department of Homeland Security. My response follows, and you can find the original forward below the cut.

---

I had a friend from Canada. People were always asking him if he knew some other person they knew that was from Canada. Strangest thing. But that's how people think. It's hard to get past your first reactions. When we encounter someone that is different in some way, we group them together with other people that have the same difference. It's unavoidable, really.

It's hard when we encounter someone who was born the wrong color or raised all their life to believe the wrong religion. It's hard not to think that maybe they are friends with other such people you know of. Or that they will act the same way. Or that they can't be trusted because they will always side with other blue-skinned people who pray standing on their heads.

If we're smart we'll try to get past our first reactions. We'll try to look deeper and judge people on their own individual merits. We'll work together with people who are different to make the world a better place. Some of them (but not all) may even have valuable insights to share about other blue-skinned people who pray on their heads.

There are places in the world where people have given up on this. Places where every blue-skinned person has a friend who was hurt by a purple-skinned person, and vice-versa. Where the blues and purples can no longer think of each other as people. I am glad this is not one of those places yet.

I think it's ok to look silly sometimes and make mistakes like thinking everyone from Canada knows each other. We're all human. As long as we're trying to do better.

Best wishes,
Josh

---

( Original Forward Message )

I actually like it when people use tags creatively like this.

http://www.last.fm/tag/i%20will%20kill%20who%20tagged%20bella%20morte%20as%20emo

Emilie Autumn puts on a good show.

In the past four months I've been getting most of my income from writing web apps. For the most part this is great. I enjoy doing it, and there are a lot of cool bits of tech that let you do interesting things with minimal effort. But there is always one thing that gets in the way and ruins all the fun, and that's micro$oft internet explorer.

Here's how you make a web page. First, you write the page using your preferred tools and test it with whatever browser you normally use. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, whatever. When you're done you open up in those other browsers. Yup, everything looks fine. Then you open it in IE, and say to yourself "what the shit is that?" Then you spend the next couple of hours researching ie bugs and workarounds and trying to beat code into internet explorer to get it to do something resembling what the other browsers show.

I spend hours every week dealing with internet explorer failing to properly display even the simplest web designs. Setting aside how much fixing these problems sucks, this pretty much directly translates to money being pulled out of my pocket... to the tune of hundreds of dollars a week. I only work so many hours a week, and if those are spent dealing with ie instead of implementing features, it takes me longer to get paid and get on to the next project.

Of course I am billing by the hour in many cases, so I am getting paid for that time. But nevertheless, I could bill more per hour if I could get more useful things done per hour. This isn't just me either. This is everyone making web pages everywhere.

So some guys at Google came along and decided to ship their Chrome browser as an internet explorer plug-in. This is such a beautiful solution. They've set it up so that with a little piece of code on your site, you can cause internet explorer users to view the site rendered with chrome instead. It's still internet explorer in every way that matters, but it's also chrome in every way that matters. No more hours spent cursing the gods and researching css hacks.

This sort of restores my faith in humanity. I mean no matter how much the micro$ofts of the world shit all over us, there's still the hope that a few really smart people somewhere will find a way around it.

The House of Discord (hereafter the 'HoD') is a haphazard collection of people occupying a 5 bedroom facility in the medical center area. The HoD is conveniently located near highway 288 with quick access to downtown, the medical center, Rice University, the University of Houston, and just about anywhere else.

The HoD is currently seeking one or more new roommates to fill upcoming openings. Rent is $360 per room, and bills including broadband, etc. commonly amount to $120 per person.

Only bohemians, artists, hackers, mystics, scientists, poets, or other exotic types need apply - any mundane soul will be unceremoniously rejected.

www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-master+of+all+that+i+survey

put this together this evening. had the idea a while back.



takes a few clicks to view it full size

I think I have a cold. I feel like ass, but I've had worse


Some thoughts for the day..

When we read in the evening paper that we’re footing the bill for another bailout, we react by complaining to our friends, suggesting alternatives, and trying to build coalitions for reform. This primal behavior is as good a guide for how to effectively reform modern political systems as our instinctive taste for sugar and fat is for how to eat nutritiously.

--Patri Friedman, Beyond Folk Activism

Religions are, mostly, the rotting corpses of dead mystical schools. They're founded by people who have primary mystical experiences or theophanies and (for whatever reason) do not interpret the content of those experiences into the terms of the religious traditions available around them. These primary mystics recruit disciples and attempt to teach them how to replicate their theophany.

Usually these founders (having neither training for nor interest in science or analytic rigor) mistake the incidentals of the experience for its cause, and teach induction methods which are only accidentally effective. As time goes by the induction methods accrete layers of ritual and dogma that crowd out the theophanic aspect, and are adapted for other purposes.

-- Eric Raymond, Dancing with the Gods

Today dirgeforwinter came by and talked to me. Even after what happened she was worried about me, as I was about her. She came to put the break-up in a new light, to comfort me, and to be comforted by me. She did so against her friends' advice.

She said that she wished the forces that had separated us were temporary, because if they were she would still take me back. I am eternally grateful to her for those words.

We talked for some time, and there were tears, but there were a few little smiles as well. We discussed that each of us needed things the other could not do or be.

Before she left we hugged and told each other that this was for the best. That things would be ok. That we would both be happier, and be glad to see the other happy.

Even in breaking up dirgeforwinter is the most wonderful girl one could ever hope to have. It has been a great privilege to spend these years with her.

It's days like this when I wish I were as hollow as my detractors say that I am.







I apologize for adding more emo to LJ, which does not need it. If you're thinking of de-friending me, now is the time; it may be like this for a while.

We lost another tire and have been stuck in Albuquerque for several hours. It is generally agreed that we should have planned to turn left here. An ally in town here came out, loaned us some gas money, and took away one of the crew to stay here for a few days. Another two people got on a plane back to Houston. We are now an expedition of 5 people. Of those, one will be dropped off in Fredericksburg and the other in Austin. This will leave only 3 returning to Houston with the bus from the original 10 that departed from there nearly two weeks ago.

A tire blew out on the bus in Page, AZ. Wandered down the canyon they have there to the lake and went swimming. Now passing through Winslow, AZ. Will stand on a corner and keep an eye out for women driving fords if the opportunity presents itself.

My camp-mates and I (or at least those returning to Texas) departed from our site at Burning Man yesterday at sunset. We arrived in Reno around 1am and parked outside a casino. Two that had to get back early left by plane this morning. There are now 7 of us in an expedition that was once 13.

We spent around 9 or 10 hours in the casino parking lot. I went inside a couple of times, including once for dinner around 2am. Since leaving the casino we have determined that we cannot get the needed tire alignment done on our bus in Reno today since it is labor day.

Fortunately I am able to tether my laptop to my phone and get online and work.

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/06/boys-at-talk-polywell-have-struck.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/interview-dr-richard-nebel-of.html

If they continue to be successful in their research, this could put an end to the multi-billion dollar tokomak fusion research industry, which would otherwise be able to employ numerous scientists for decades to come without any real danger of producing commercially viable fusion technology.

To refresh your memory, polywell fusion comes from the work of Dr. Robert Brussard, perhaps better known for inventing the Bussard ramjet, a form of which powers the Starship Enterprise and some early ship models in Niven's Known Space. In 1935 Brussard decided he wanted to go to Mars, and so decided to get working on solving the various physics problems that separated him from that goal. Being 7 at the time, progress was slow at first, but a mere 56 years later he was ready to found a company to pursue the development of fusion energy. It was at this company, EMC², that he developed the physics behind the Polywell fusor.

Through arranging the solid components of the fusor as tori on the faces of a regular polyhedron, Brussard's Polywell forms a very sleek futuristic looking device which also happens to keep the high energy subatomic particles within from slamming into things you want to keep. This is great if you want the thing to be efficient and produce a net energy gain when scaled properly, but not so great if you're a young physicist wanting to still be making good money researching the possibility of fusion energy when you are old enough to retire.

When last we heard from Dr. Brussard, his funding had dried up and he was working on conning someone else into panhandling the necessary pocket change to build his next prototype, saying "I'm too old for this". In august of '07 he succeeded in securing new funding and assembling a team to replace him. This left him free to pursue other interests, such as dying of lung cancer, which he did promptly two months later.