Since news of my own humble life cannot possibly holld your interest for very long, I have obtained almost exlusive rights to publish the achievements of a recent graduate student of mine: Alan Huffman. So this post, and some to follow, chronicle Alan's adventures in the wild, dwelling among people who do not yet know Java.
This first eposide finds Alan and his buddy Sean about to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Jambo (Hello) All,For those of you concerned in not having heard from us, Sean and I, for a while (weeks) let me assure you all is well. Thanks for your concern.
In this e-mail I am abandoning my usual format of The Good, Bad and Ugly. I will retain The Ugly and consolidate the Good & Bad as that format is more suitable for the tale; I am sure you will enjoy the story no matter the format.
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The Good & The Bad (Kilimanjaro):
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References to Kilimanjaro are peppered throughout our culture. The mountain has been so popularized that the West pitches it in Ads and sells it as romantic fodder for self-aggrandizing yuppies, which is why I, and I think most people, must climb it.
People may argue the climb is justified by the mountain's superlative merits. It is the largest freestanding mountain in the world, one of the largest volcanoes and at over 5 vertical miles in altitude the highest point in Africa. Even these characteristics fail to enumerate some of its more enchanting qualities such as it having all five climatic zones ranging from rainforest to glaciers, but in the end the majestic mount is but a rock. And as many people as know the name Kilimanjaro few know what country it is located in; most say Kenya while she rises into Tanzanian skies. The reality of Kili is she has a temper that bleeds the life from the lungs and has left many a people cold along side her dwindling glaciers.
An article I read before coming to Africa warned of her rage and was titled "Climb a Mountain, but Not This One. I sunk my teeth into that article and cringed with excitement for such a challenge. In so few words the author had failed his purpose, to dissuade would be climbers, and had galvanized my will to summit. Having now climbed I think the title apt, but I won't tell you not to climb Kili for fear of failing you as this author failed me. I will hope to hold you from her slopes by saying these 6 days, as you will hear, were the hardest, most miserable of my 27 year life. If you favor superlatives, as do most Americans, hold that one to your heart.
Before I start into the tale you must appreciate the mischief altitude causes. In short the higher you go the thinner the atmosphere, which means less oxygen, less atmospheric pressure and less atmospheric protection from the Sun. As a person rises in altitude breathing becomes more difficult and a variety of physiological reactions take place that can result in altitude sickness, a real jewel by most measures.
Altitude sickness comes in several flavors. Loss of appetite and headaches adorn the lesser end of the gamut. Nausea and vomiting take center stage, while the grand finale is pulmonary edema (lungs fill with fluid and you drowned) and Embolism (blood vessel pops in your brain). These things should be avoided.
The best way to avoid altitude sickness is don't go up, don't ascend. Stay below 3000 meters and live it up. Else, drink lots of water, cross your fingers, and pray to the gods. There is one trick of Western Medicine, Diamox, Acetyzolamide. It's a mild diuretic that helps abate altitude sickness, or mask it - that's the problem. You may have altitude sickness, you may be dying but Diamox can mask the effects. Only time bears out the truth. Sean and I took it.
On to the trip ..
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Day 1 : Mud/Diarrhea (climb from 2000 [Gate] to 3000 Meters [Machame Camp])
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We began the trip in Marangu Village at the base of Kilimanjaro where most people pick up guides for the Marangu or CocaCola Route, so called because it is as smooth as Coke. We had haphazardly chosen to do the Machame Route or Whiskey Route as Sean had read it has the highest success rate for reasons of acclimatization being built into the Route (you hike at higher altitudes and sleep at lower altitudes every day). Had we paid attention to the nickname, we would've known the hike was going to be rough. In fact it is considered to be the hardest of the `touristy' routes.
We set off at 8:30, stopped by Moshi to pick up some cash at an ATM and headed through the jungle in what looked like an old VW Mini-Bus. Two hours later we arrived at the bottom of the Machame Route via a winding dirt/mud road; frankly I was surprised the bus could make it.
We arrived with our Guide Freddy Solomon, Assistant Guide Hans and our cook Allen, Freddy's third son. Freddie was 50 years old, had been hiking Kili for 32 years and smoked ganja (pot) at every opportunity - we learned this in observation; he never admitted to it, nor did we ask. Hans was 32 and looked exactly like what you would think a Tanzanian mountaineer by the name of Hans would look like: buff. We finished off our group by getting 6 porters.
These are the guys that carry all the stuff up the mountain. Wazungu, Swahili for white people but more generally meaningful as Westerners, are weak; we can't carry anything up the mountain, so we hire these poor guys to do it. More on that later, but these guys are nothing short of super heros.
I started off in sandals but was told by Freddie that I should switch to my shoes as there was `some mud.' To say there was some mud is like saying Bill Gates has some cash. We tracked through mud for 7 hours. We trudged through so much mud I began to believe in eternity, the river of fire and all that jazz about hell. We were ankle deep in rainforest dank that teemed with parasites and made gaining altitude a chore best left to fiction. No doubt Sean and I had done some awful stuff in previous lives to deserve this mess.
Initially I flew up the mountain. I felt like Lance Armstrong passing Germans, French & Italians along winding slopes. But I'm no Lance and apparently my deeds in previous lives were worse than Sean's. Halfway up I got diarrhea.
I'll go into depth on how bad `trail diarrhea' is in the Ugly Section (see Ugly Defined below), but I'll say this: I found a god on that slope in the form of an Eastern style toilet (an outhouse with a hole in the floor) and a guide with a half roll of toilet paper. I may never be as happy as when I saw that ram shackled building, and I'll probably never be any more miserable than I was fifteen minutes later squatting in the rainforest with flies and insects descending upon my misfortune - I had it bad. Within a period of one hour all the people I had passed on the trail flew past me, some spotting me, a hunched mess, in the forest; I think I heard a few of them utter prayers for mercy. God knows I was begging for it.*
By the time I arrived at the camp I was certain my misfortune had ended. The seven hours of hiking up half a vertical mile (1500M) and my `troubles' had left me drained and exhausted. Sean and I sat down to a dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese - something that will haunt me the rest of my days.
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Day 2 : Diarrhea ( 3000 to 3900 Meters [Shira Camp])
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I went to sleep and awoke at 10:30 pm with a type of panic that is usually reserved for near death experiences. I went to pay homage to my new god, see Eastern Toilets in the Ugly Section. My faith implored me to pray 3 times that night, and so violent were my prostrations that I thought not only had the Summit evaded me but only a helicopter could save me from Kili. By six in the morning I could not stand up straight and was forced to run, in hunched fashion, between the tent and my church. Our guides woke us at seven.
When I informed Freddie, the only of our team that spoke English, that I had diarrhea, he shifted his eyes from me to the distant horizon like a captain resigned to go down with his ship. My fate seemed sealed, but a minute later he stripped my breakfast down to cornflakes and hot water saying "this will be good for stomach. Two hours later I poured masticated corn flakes upon the slopes of Kili.
To say that I was weak would be an injustice to the English language; I felt nearly dead. I had essentially fasted for two days while hiking longer than I had ever hiked in my life. I tried to eat but ended up fertilizing the mountain each time.
In fact I gave up the climb when I felt I could go no further; I paused thinking "Alright guys this is a wrap, I'm out of here. I was through.
That's when Sean chimed in, "Just make it up to that rock and then you can rest.
I dug in my walking sticks and pushed forward, desperately searching for something to get me up that slope. A solemn idea came to my rescue:
Some day it would all be over. Some day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, I would be well.
So I collapsed the now and the near future and I focused on that day when all would be well. We never stopped at the rock. I made it through the day, and my diarrhea subsided that night when my fever broke.
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Day 3 : Rain (Climb 3900 to 4200 and down to 3500 [Baraque Camp])
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By the third day I was able to hold down basic foods, white rice, white toast and broth soup. Having not digested anything for two days I was elated accomplishment and not depressed by the fact we were to hike through 7 hours of rain and sleet up to 4200 Meters (nearly 5 vertical miles) in altitude.
By the time we reached our camp, Barufu, the rain had soaked through Sean and my shoes, socks, waterproof jacket and pants. We were soaked to the bone and had to work for 30 minutes in the rain creating a ravine to shunt water away from our tent. Everything was wet.
The interior of our tent was mud from wall to wall. Our bag, clothes and sleeping bags were wet. Between the two of us, we had 1 partially dry sleeping bag, 1 mostly wet sleeping bag and a few pairs of dry socks - we were not the worst off. Many people didn't have anything dry and resorted to huddling in their wet tents to stave off hypothermia.
Sean and I lay down on our wet jackets, under the two sleeping bags. We had to get close to keep warm and after a few hours the water in the bags and on the tent floor had warmed. I got in my sleeping bag and fell asleep.
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Day 4 : Dry (Climb from 3500 to 4500 M [Barafu])
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We awoke to the bliss of dry weather. The campsite, which had been an ocean of mud the night before, was now a dry bed of dirt beneath the `foot of god.' Kili's glaciated peaks stood above our tents like a god about to stamp us into oblivion. That's what we were climbing, a peak that stretched into the cold blue sky like a tombstone.
We shook out our damp clothes and started laying everything on rocks in wait for the Sun. The previous night we had agreed that if it rained today there would be no hope of making the summit; we would have no dry equipment.
The sun rose behind the peaks of Kili and illuminated the clouds that stretched a thousand meters below us. The rays crept over the campsite and began drying everyone's equipment.
Day 4 is supposed to start early in order to accommodate a 7 hour hike up and down the steep faces approaching the final campsite before attempting the summit. Most important is the time hikers arrive at the campsite; the summit is attempted at 12 midnight.
We had to let our things dry and didn't get to leave until 10 AM, roughly an hour and a half to two hours after we should've left. We were going to be exhausted for the kili trek, but we'd also be dry. Given that temperatures can drop to minus 30 degrees F, including the wind, being dry is a must.
The hike was long beneath a relentless Sun. I was being burned to a crisp as we had forgotten to bring sunscreen. By the time we reached the campsite I had a headache that I mistook for a embolism. I couldn't think straight, so I crawled into the tent and started drinking as much water as we had available. As it turns out I was suffering Africa's white man disease. I had succumbed to the Sun.
Sean and I were lucky. We didn't get nausea and were able to eat dinner before nodding off at 8 pm. Others we talked to later had tried to eat and ended up purging it minutes later. Hiking the mountain on an empty stomach is no easy feat.
We awoke at 11 PM to begin our 7 hour climb to the summit.
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Day 5 : Summit (Climb 4500 to 5985 [Uhuru Peak, Summit] to 1800 M [Mweka Alt Camp])
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At midnight a strand of lights ran up the side of Kili like Christmas lights a tree. The moon was half full and bright enough to outline the horizon, which it slid behind thirty minutes later.
In the beginning everything went well. We were out pacing most people and the climb wasn't too steep. But after an hour or two Sean began to have trouble getting up the Scree - gravel that covers the slopes; it's notoriously difficult to go up Scree and very easy to come down. We slowed our ascent in hopes of him finding more solid footing.
An hour later his footing was getting worse; he was feeling tired and was having trouble with his balance. I thought he was succumbing to altitude sickness. I checked his lips - if they turn blue you're done as it indicates you're body doesn't have enough oxygen carrying capacity; you have to descend immediately. But his lips were pink; he didn't have a headache and felt fine except for being fatigued.
We slowed our descent a little more but his condition deteriorated. I checked him over a few more times and then advised him to turn back.
"It's a rock cat; it's a big rock. That's all. It's not worth it. You should turn back. I'm not comfortable with Hans helping you up the mountain.
Hans by this time was literally holding Sean to help him balance; Sean's effort was relegated to charging him up the mountain. His equilibrium was shot.
I repeated my concern and advice for him to return to the camp, to descend. I repeated myself 3 times, saying he would have to make the final call but that's the way I felt about it.
Sean, Freddie and Hans assured me he was fine to continue up the mountain. We were going very slowly on account of his balance, and a crosswind was tearing into us. I was freezing and needed to warm up. Hans and Freddie advised and persuaded me to break off from Sean. Freddie and I were to ascend at a faster speed, allowing me to warm up, while Sean and Hans would go Pole Pole, Swahili for slow. I tentatively agreed and started up the mountain. I ascended maybe 20 or 30 vertical meters before I decided I wouldn't abandon Sean.
I told Freddie that it didn't matter if I made it if I weren't with my buddy. Freddy persuaded me to continue up, but I persisted saying that I didn't care about the summit. I wanted to go back down and stay together - Sean and I had made a pact to stay together on the mountain. My father had begged me to keep to the promise, and I had failed.
We returned to find Sean in worse condition but still moving up the mountain. About the time we met on the slopes the Sun rose over the horizon. I don't think I'll ever forget that sight. It looked like the hand of god; his fingers lit the slopes, and we turned off our headlamps.
We were several hours from the summit; at sunrise we were supposed to be at Uhuru peak. We had fallen well behind schedule, and we weren't making up ground. Worse than that I had only brought enough food and water for a 7 hour hike. We were approaching 6 and, as it turns out, had another 7 hours to go.
As Sean's ascent slowed. Freddie and Hans persuaded me to break off from Sean and ascend else I wouldn't make Uhuru. Being tired I had begun to doubt my ability to summit, so I agreed and broke off.
Five vertical miles in altitude is tough stuff. I had a hard time breathing and reaching Stella point, 200 vertical meters below the Summit, was the hardest thing I've ever done. Once at Stella I spoke with a few friends I had met on the way, threw down some Advil and started up for Uhuru peak. That part was easy.
I reached the summit, 5895M, at 8:30 AM. After a few minutes catching my breath I laughed out loud in a moment of glee for having made the mark these six days were meant for. I took a few shots and headed back to Stella.
That's where I saw Sean. I don't think I'll ever see anyone in as bad of shape as Sean was. He couldn't stand up. Hans was wholly controlling his balance. Sean was iron will and steeled resolve without the structure to hold it all up. He had charged up the mountain against all reason and odds and made it to Stella - I have some pics of it; at the time I thought they might be the last shots of Sean anyone would ever make.
Sean rested and we began our descent. Sean was sleep deprived and fatigued; he had completely lost his balance and required Hans and I to help him down the mountain. It took us 5 hours to get him down the slope. He fell more times than I can count, and at one point we let him sleep for 30 minutes on the slope - a notoriously dangerous thing to do, but we had no choice.
He was telling us that the ground was moving. He couldn't keep his head up. Frankly he looked like human Jello. I don't know how he motivated himself up the mountain; it's more than I would've done. It's certainly more than I recommended, but his judgment was impaired. I'm still working on my excuse for not forcing him down.
When we reached the bottom we met up with some girls from the US whose friend had re-fractured her leg on the Scree. Porters were carrying her down on there back; that's emergency rescue Tanzanian style.
At the campsite we crashed out for 30 minutes before being woken to hike to the next campsite. The terrain was moderate but the hike took 7 hours. Sean had regained his balance, and we were both fine but exhausted. We reached the campsite and slept immediately.
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Day 6 : Mud/End
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Ten hours of sleep is a lot if you did nothing but sit around the day before, but having hiked for nearly 2 days straight with little sleep ten hours seemed like a short nap. Regardless it was our last day so we packed up, took some final pictures and began the final descent.
With an uncanny air of symmetry the last day was a hike of 8 hours through mud. Like my first day Sean came down with diarrhea halfway down the trail. When we reached the bottom we looked like we'd been to war and lost. And that's the way I see it.
No one beats Kili. There is no winner. You get to the top and feel accomplished, but it's dangerous and painful. Would I do it again? No, but I made the Summit. Sean's toying around with the idea, and I probably would too. Who knows maybe I'm in it for the pain, and I'll return in ten years to see that the snows of Kilimanjaro really have faded with my memory of this trip.
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The Ugly
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The Ugly Defined
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I always talk about the Ugly. What is it? If I had to define the Ugly I'd say it climaxes at `trail diarrhea.' I can't imagine anything more miserable than having to scurry off a trail, drop pants and fan the flies away as misfortune pours forth.
Being in high altitude with this stuff is nearly tantamount to death. You lose water and calories, the two things that you need to combat altitude sickness and hike. Having lost so much water, you have to discontinue Diamox, the medicine that helps fight altitude sickness.
Basically you are left bare to fight the elements. Beyond the cramps, flies and dehydration it's just demoralizing. Several groups watched me wave my muddy, white flag of an ass along the trail. My head was dipped, and my face strained. When I returned to the trail I was beaten. I stepped like a prisoner to his execution and people recognized me for what I was: dead meat.
When I was in Egypt I contracted some nasty bacterial diarrhea; that's bad, but I was able to lay around and sleep it off. With this Sean and I both had to trudge through mud and up & down slopes with the occasional sideshow. Trust me, there are few non-terminal illnesses that I can think of that could be worse than that.
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Eastern Toilets
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Have you ever had the pleasure? If not I recommend you buy some plywood and construct one of these beauties in the backyard. Make a box of wood and cut a square whole in the middle of the floor. Make a door out of one of the walls and viola, Eastern Toilet.
The trick to the Eastern toilet is holding yourself so as to be over the hole, not fall in it, not soil yourself, and all without letting your clothes touch the filthy floor - people have poor aim.
I'm unhappy to say I'm now an expert at this love pot of a bathroom amenity - Sean, from what he's said, isn't too bad himself. I pray you'll not master this skill.
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*I'm agnostic leaning towards atheism; I used the reference to god for the exposition. My friends and family I have not found faith yet.
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"Dying is inevitable; living is not."
Alan Huffman
alan@logiclinks.com
www.logiclinks.com
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I'm glad it's Saturday after a long and hectic week. It seems that students are getting sick at Wash U and my kids are also sick. So something is going around.
I've been doing a course at OCI last week and this coming week with Morgan , and that's been an interesting experience. It's making me think that a course in Real TIme programming might be Real Neat, and I'm thinking of developing such a thing while at San Diego, should Real Time still be Real Interesting by the time I Really get out there. Right now, San Diego seems a world away.
David Wise visited our deaprtment and I had dinner with him last night at Lorenzo's Trattoria on the Hill. We then went to (where else?) Ted Drewes , and as I got out the car I told him I always see somebody I know there, and sure enough my (G.P.) doctor was there with his family.
By the way, a fun thing to do is to get a substantial quantity of Ted Drewes custard pre-packed in cups to-go. When you get home, dispose of the the custard as you see fit. The dry ice in which it's packed then provides hours of fun.
David gave a very good talk -- one of the best I've heard on the topic of numerical analysis (which some call numerical paralysis because the material can be dryer than a 50-year-old bottle of Suave Bolla). David, a VP of ACM , spoke wtih the movers and shakers of our student ACM chapter.
Well, now on to making breakfast....
I just came back from the Cardinals / Brewers game, and the Cardinals are winning by a landslide. Prior to the game, I had a few minutes of my 15 minutes of alloted fame, as I sang the National Anthem from the field with the Reed Elementary School Chorus. I was the only parent allowed to do so, and it's because I accompany the chorus (so to speak) on the piano every week and at their concerts. I'll write more about that later, but first, my report about our gig.
We showed up around 6:15, parents, kids, and teachers, and the kids and teachers (and I) warmed up outside the stadium by singing the National Anthem a few times. The National Anthem was designed to be unsingable, reaching as it does from the Bb below middle C to the F above high C. Maybe that's why nobody really sings it at a ballpark except the clowns on the field (us).
We were ushered in through the "wagon gate" -- the wide area that cars, tractors, mobile homes can use to gain access to the field. We got to see the cars parked there that belonged to the players -- they have some very nice cars, let me tell you.
We saw Jim Edmonds warming up from where we were standing. The kids started yelling and waving -- I was too cool to do this of course, but he waved back at us thanks to the uninhibited kids.
The only weird part of this was that there was a kerosene tank near where we were all standing while waiting to get on the field, with "No Smoking" written all around it. Of course, a guy was standing there, leaning against it and smoking.
We were ushered onto the field, and waited while the guy who caught McGuire's ball from last year stood in front of the whole stadium crowd and took his oath as a new attorney. Not a hard act for us to follow.
Our fearless leader Sandy Baldwin waved her hands and we took off singing. You could hear the sound reverberating in the stadium, it was really neat.
I'm not sure why, and it's hard to explain, but this was a high point in my life. I'm not a real baseball fan, but since moving to St Louis I do follow the Cards and it was moving to be able to do something patriotic at a baseball game with a group of incredible kids and teachers.
As we left the field, the players (Cards) in the dugout high fived us (yep, me too). The Cards went on to destroy (distill?) the Brewers. Maybe we had something to do with that.
Lucas has pointed out Rule 1 concerning drivers (in St Louis, but I believe the heuristics can be generalized) and stop signs.
St Louis hosts more 4-way stop signs than any other locality, so I'm told by locals here, but you wouldn't know this to watch people drive. Instead of stopping and admiring a 4-way stop, most drivers roll right through, anxious I suppose to get a good view of the next 4-way stop sign down the pike.
Four-way stop signs are the invention of indecisive and too-eager-to-please minds, thinking that they can't figure out which way traffic predominantly flows, so they offend nobody by making everybody stop. What a waste of time and protocol.
Then there are the drivers in St Louis who stop at the stop sign, and stay stopped long past their protocol-sanctioned window to press on. They are "being nice" by playing traffic cop and waving some other driver through the intersection. One time I saw a driver fool two perpendicularly oriented drivers into both going ahead, resultilng in a satisfying low-impact crunch in the intersection.
Sometimes this well-intentioned but misdirected effort at generosity evolves into the "after you" game -- a kind of reverse "chicken' game where the first driver to move is the loser.
If only drivers could act like processors using the Ethernet, respecting protocol about who got to the intersection first, performing random, exponential back-off to break a tie. But then I guess a driver could get pulled over for exceeding the local bandwidth.
It is with sadness that I report that the last of my relatives is leaving the humble city of Tyler Texas. My grandfather and his brother came to Texas because New York wouldn't let the ship of immigrants dock. So he and his brother split with the brother going to Mexico and my grandfather settling in Texas. As a result, I have relatives all over Texas and parts of Mexico, and until recently, that set included Tyler Texas.
Tyler is a relatively small town 100 miles East of Dallas. It is "dry" which means that instead of buying liquor locally, people drive many miles to Mineola, get drunk, and then drive back. Makese sense, huh?
There is a lot about Tyler that is "old South" including the high school whose team and mascot were the "Rebels". The state made them change all of that after protest some years ago. Tyler is also sometimes known as the "Rose Capital of the World" but I think a lot of cities have a stake in that title these days.
So my Aunt Fuffy (her real appelation is Sandra, but as a kid I couldn't grok that she and her husband were both "Sandy", so I called her [of course] Fuffy and the name now enjoys widespread use) and Uncle Sandy are packing up their home after some 60 years in Tyler and moving to San Diego.
That choice of locale is not without coincidence, as we are moving to San Diego also for a short sabbatical next Fall.
I'll miss visiting Tyler -- if you're ever in that neck of the woods (Texas pine country to be exact), it's worth a stop.
I'm a big fan of "second" languages, and I like to think that after a few beers I could hold my own in a German conversation. When I was at U of Illinois, one requirement for graduation was competency in one language and the ability to read something simple in another. So with German unter my belt, I thought it would be good to learn some French. Actually, I decided on French because, after an informal poll, it was the language most women were studying. I figured that if I could speak their language, maybe they would go out with me.
So I took one semester of French, met one woman I dated briefly, and fulfilled my requirements for graduation. On visting a friend of mine in Paris, he asked me to try speaking some French with him. I warned him that I had only one semester, and so we had only covered the "present tense". He told me not to worry, that the French live in the present.
After years of not getting to speak much of German or French in the places I've dwelled, I've thought that it would have been good in retrospect to study sign language. My kids are currently in schools where a "second language" is a good thing, but none of the schools are offering sign language.
You might think, as I once did, that if everybody spoke sign language (so to speak, because you don't actually speak it at all), then we could all communicate in this common second language. How wrong I was.
My friends who sign informed that there is not one sign language, but there are in fact many dialects. In fact, there are evidently substantial differences between the sign language used in America and Great Britain---differences that cannot be shoved under the bonnet. And there are even more differences between sign language practiced in America and languages where English is not the spoken language.
How did this happen? Well it turned out that sign language was contaminated by people who can speak, so that some of the gestures look like the English word for the concept or are based on letters from an English word.
This is really a shame. We had a chance to de-Babel ourselves and we messed it up again. Well, as the French say: c'est fromage.
Well the semester is in full swing, and I got behind in posting. Here are some thoughts about CS 101 and a policy in Arts and Sciences that is discouraging students from taking our courses, and a lack of action by our administration that is discouraging me.
While I didn't invent 101 (Rich Dammkoehler did), I am one of a few who are fortunate to teach it now and then. With the boom in computers and networks, students from other Schools at our University have started taking 101 -- this trend began about 3 years ago, and it affected (for the better, IMHO) the content and feel of CS 101.
In the past year, ArtSci revistied, revamped, and reinvented their curriculum, primarly the portions that deal with what courses lend balance to the students' experience here. All curricula here involve studies outside the primary area of interest, and almost everybody agrees this is a good thing.
While their original charter called for inclusion and outreach, the form of the ArtSci curriculum that eventually passed completely excluded courses from outside ArtSci from counting toward any ArtSci student's distribution requirements.
So, while CS 101 used to count so that ArtSci students could take it to satisfy distribution requiremens, such is no longer the case.
I thought I had this problem licked: I got CS 101 approved for cross-listing with Linguistics so it also appears as Linguistics 101. This isn't such a stretch, and in fact 101 used to be cross-listed in this way. But ArtSci was too clever for me: it's not enough to get the file listed as an ArtSci course, it has to earn the ArtSci seal of approval. Needless to say, this was not granted.
Meanwhile, to offer their students something computerish that does count, the Econ department offers a course like our CS 100 (something I'll post more about later) and their Math department teaches a course called Intro to Computing that teaches the C language.
Now, everybody in this melodrama is well intentioned. Most ArtSci faculty are suprrised at the form of the final New Curriculum that they voted into being. They didn't read the fine print to see that it excluded courses outside their School. We Computer Scientist faculty have the hubris to think that we can teach computing and computer science courses better than other departments where those subjects are not central.
So why is this happening? It may be financially motivated. ArtSci has to pay us to teach CS 101 to their students, on a per-student basis. It turns out we pay them more to teach our students things, but that's another story. No other explanation has been offered, but if finances drive the way we shape curricula for students, then something is very wrong.
I am discouraged to be in a department that is viewed by an entire School as having nothing worthwhile to offer their students, and to be at a University where an injustice like this goes uncorrected.
On a positive note, the Engineering School has passed a resolution asking ArtSci to once again be more open to the offerings of other Schools. While I am hopeful, this may not have any effect. For a University that finds itself in the middle of the Information Revolution, we are squandering our resources by marginalizing the CS department (and other departments outside of ArtSci) as being too specialized to be of interest to ArtSci students.
Posts about religion seem to garner the most comments....
When I lived in Yorktown Heights , I had the great pleasure of playing organ at Saint Patrick's . This is the most amazing parish I've every accompanied, and the music program there is unparalleled. Kathey Lewis directs the music there, and her husband Rick Dalby is an unbelievable pianist (but you can believe him, he's a physicist). I could post for days about the great stuff they do there, but I thought you might find this story amusing.
There was a priest there some years ago, Father Michael, a really great guy. I guess it's somewhat unusual for a Jew to play organ, but there are more of us out there than you'd think, and the Old Testament does mention "an instrument of great wind".
Anyway, the priests and staff knew I am Jewish, and Father Michael was fond of sprinkling the congregation with Holy Water. The organ was near the altar, and he would usually smile at me and hurl extra water my way, thinking it would do me some good.
One service he over-doused, and the organ went "sizzle sizzle pop" and shorted out. I told him what happened after the service was over, because the organ wouldn't play. He told me he exorcised it of its evil spirit.
Following Chris's post concerning the Philosopher's Stone and other mystical topics, I thought it prudent to post an interesting tidbit of which we Jews are reminded every Yom Kippur -- we have forgotten the name of G-d.
That remark is not meant figuratively but literally. In days of yore, when the central temple in Jerusalem was intact and animal sacrifices were in vogue, once a year the High Priest would enter the central-most portion of the Temple, where the stone containing the Ten Commandments was housed, and utter the actual name of G-d.
Following the second destruction of the Temple, those who knew the name perished and we no longer know the actual name of G-d.
If only it had been written down and put in a safe place.
This could be the basis of a plot for a new Indiana Jones movie: Indy goes back in time and enters the Temple to listen for the name of G-d, because utterance of the Name is supposed to cause powerful things to happen.
So to whom are we praying these days? In Hebriew, the actual name of G-d was never written, so in the Bible it shows up as the unpronouncable YHVH, which some say is "Yehovah"-- hence, the Jehova's witnesses. But that would be like calling somebody Mirr Smith because of the way one might pronounce "Mr.". We don't know any longer the "Mister" that matches the "Mr." for YHVH. We pronounce it "Adonai", which means "my master" or "my lord", but even that name we change slightly unless we really, really mean it. For example, even here, I write G-d instead of you know what for reasons that are explained here .
Some think that utterance of the Name will bring about the end of the world, and so they are using computers to grind out lots of names because they think there is a lot of mathematical stuff in the Bible.
That could be the next cs 101 assignment, but how could you grade an assignment that brings about the end of the world?
Well, my comment-to-original-post ratio remains high, but it's been awfully quiet out there. Tonight at sundown begins Yom Kippur or "Day of Atonement". It's a very introspective time, ending 10 days of soul-searching since the Jewish New Year. When I was a kid, I remember sitting in services and thinking none of the sins applied to me -- things like xenophobia, stiff-neckedness, that kind of thing. But since becoming an adult, the list hits far too close to home. Things were very simple as a kid, very black and white, but now they are very grey.
There's a prayer said or sung tonight called "Kol Nidrei" and it is written in Aramaic, the language Jews in the days of Jesus spoke, so that Jews of that day would understand completely what they were saying. The prayer says that all vows and promises made between now and next year are null and void and have no meaning. The intent concerns vows between oneself and G-d, but the prayer originated because Jews long ago had to say things they didn't mean, to avoid being killed. Some have taken this prayer to mean that you can't trust the word of a Jew, but that is nonsense. In this country, an agreement made under duress is void.
I guess the biggie about the hoilday is realization that one's potential can exceed greatly what one has done so far, and that can be a sobering thought.
It's an amazingly complicated thing being human. Unlike other species, we pretty much have to restrain ourselves continuously from doing what seems natural. Other species, they enjoy "load and go" "plug and play" programming. From Puma to Foosa, they don't get in trouble for doing day to day what comes naturally. But we humans---driven as we are to conquer, plunder, procreate---we must channel or repress these tendencies if we want to get along in our society.
To end on a positive note, one of my favorite Jewish proverbs is that one is held accountable for every joy one chooses not to experience in life. Not bad for religion, huh?
I feel utra cool today, coming to work as I did toting my spanking new, Bob the Builder lunch box. It came with a Thermos , Pringles Chip Cozy, and bag of quasi-healthy rice chips.
My only problem is that my son Jacob is coveting my lunch box, thinking I got it for him. Well, glad Target is so close by.
One of my daughters is coveting the Pringles Chip Cozy, because it's purple and shaped to hold Pringles Chips without breaking them.
And there's more where that came fromL an entire page of Bob the Builder merchandise .
I feel utra cool today, coming to work as I did toting my spanking new, Bob the Builder lunch box. It came with a Thermos , Pringles Chip Cozy, and bag of quasi-healthy rice chips.
My only problem is that my son Jacob is coveting my lunch box, thinking I got it for him. Well, glad Target is so close by.
One of my daughters is coveting the Pringles Chip Cozy, because it's purple and shaped to hold Pringles Chips without breaking them.
And there's more where that came from: an entire page of Bob the Builder merchandise .
This is mkato (mobile kato -- the laptop that attacks without notice) reporting from the field -- while Ron sleeps off that wild party at his house last night -- Dick Solomon of 3rd Rock couldn't have said it any better.
If you had friends like I have, then someday somebody will say this of your blog!
If only my master were worthy.....
Afer numerous emails and discussions at high levels (that is, I was excluded), it appears that I will not have to disclose my cs password to be able to hook my laptop to the Ethernet service in January 110.
The news was given to me somewhat along these lines:
We don't feel that what we are doing is wrong, but it's purpose is to make sure we know who you are. Now we know who you are, so we don't need your password
Meanwhile, the lack of connectivity convinced me to install the software on the in-room computer, so now I don't have to lug my laptop over to lecture every day. I probably won't use the Ethernet service, and we're probably all better-off because of this.
I receive jokes from time to time from my Rice roommate Alan , and he recently alerted me to the fact that there is an orchestra in Vienna (the one in Austria, not Arkansas), whose instruments are made almost entirely from vegetables (Gemuese in German, pronounced geh-MOOZ-uh, but the "u" has an umlaut which morphs it into a Valley Girl kind of uuuuuuuuu -- try it after drinking German beer: it's a lot easier).
If after reading this you question Alan's sense of humor, please bear in mind he was my roommate all four years at Rice. There should be a 12-step program for such people. Papal canonization is a viable alternative.
Do you doubt the verisimiltude of these vegetarian vicars? Well take a look here . It must be true.
So what kinds of pieces do you think they'll play? I gave it some thought:
- Vivaldi's The Four Seasonings
- Haydn's Meatloaf Surprise Symphony
- Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Creme
- Liszt's Hungarian Goulash Rhapsody
- Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue Cheese
- Bach's Sheep may safely graze
The last one may take some thought -- comments with other titles most welcome!
David has hinted that a redesign of this web site might be in the works. All I can say about this is:
- The redesign is in far better hands than mine. I have trouble matching colors for my shirts and pants, and I'm still unclear about when blue and black can be worn together.
- If it happens, it will be an improvement beyond anyone's anticipation, especially mine.
- This site is not worthy of such lavish attention: I am not linked by my betters .
I was in the middle of posting some thoughts about 9/11 when my computer crashed. Coincidence? I think not. The coincidence doesn't involve terrorists unless you believe that the authors of Microsoft Windows '98 had evil intentions.
Hmmmm. My computer does crash more often than a 3-legged dog on peyote.
I was writing about Turkey Mountain , which I used to climb regularly with my beard-bearing nemesis. From the top of Turkey Mountain, you could just barely see the tops of the WTC towers. So my connection with the WTC is a bit distant, at 40 miles from ground zero, but I've been thinking a lot about the changes in and around us since 9/11. I did more of that than usual when I took a stroll around Stacy Park in Olivette yesterday morning.
While admiring the quasi-Autumnal foliage, I heard from across the street the morning announcements from the Old Bonhomme Elementary School. The pledge was recited, a rare moment of elementary-school silence was observed, and the school then sang "America the Beautiful".
That brief homage was more moving than anything I saw on TV yesterday.
Today I just experienced my first MRI scan. Since it was a new experience to me, I expect that most of my readers haven't had an MRI. Although it is not painful, it is an interesting, almost surreal experience. Since there's not too much else to report, I thought I'd report on what an MRI is like.
I had a "dry" MRI -- I didn't have to ingest or be injected with anything. If you have your choice, I would think that's the way to go. Unlike some people, I don't relish the thought of imbibing substances that glow in the dark; injection of said chemicals is equally unappealing.
I think they've improved MRI machines to the point that they're not so confining, but I was subjected to the older model. You're basically put on a rolling table and inserted into the MRI like a Quizno's oven-toasted sandwich.
However, I was given a choice of radio station to be piped through the plastic headphones during the 40-minute imaging party. Because of their reporting on the anniversary of 9/11, I chose NPR. In retrospect this was a bad idea. It turns out the MRI mechanism is very loud when the magnets are energized. To compensate for this, do they give you earplugs? No, they just turn up the radio station really loud. So I was treated to pulsating, loud magnetic discharges along with NPR news reporting at higher decibels than anybody would want.
Before the MRI was arranged, I was asked if I suffered from claustrophobia. It turns out your head is in a rather small cavity during the imaging process. The channel in which you are inserted Quizno-style is just one size, and for me it was a tight fit. I had one bout of claustrophobia long ago, while camping in a small tent and having it snow. But closing my eyes and imagining a larger space did the trick then and it worked fine here too.
At the end, I was eager to look at the pictures -- they were captured digitally of course and then I think they are transferred to film. If I can get the digital images, I might post them on my web page. I think they imaged my good side.
As with most medical procedures, there was little information given about what would happen when or next, and there was no chance to evaluate the conditions of the procedure, so as to provide helpful feedback (like, provide earplugs). I think Steak and Shake cares more about such things than MRI people do.
So, other than having to fight the urge to head North, the experience seems to have left me with no side-effects.
On the whole, I'd rather hear a really good talk about aspect-oriented programming .
Our computer systems have recently been augmented with a nifty piece of software called Spam Assassin. Spam Assassin claims to be a wide-spectrum spam-o-cide, and there's an image of some frightening, Ninja-like characters at the top of the page to back this up.
First, it seems to me that equipping our computers with a Spam Assassin is a bit premature. I would think a prudent first step would be Spam Deterrent. If that doesn't do the trick, how about a little Spam Embargo? And of course, the U.N. could always send over a troup of Spam Inspectors to make sure that certain parties are not developing the capability of launching inter-continental, biologically viable spam.
Spam Assassin uses some preconceived filters that look for certain phrases in your email (sex, Nigeria, upcoming departmental standing-committee meeting), and then scores a particular piece of email with a "hit" count. One can customize the filter so that Spam Assassin marks e-mail as "Spam" based on the quality or quantity of hits.
An email identified as Spam is augmented with about a page of header information explaining just how Spam Assassin evaluated the spamosity of the email on its spam-o-meter.
An analogy might go like this. Suppose somebody went around to everybody's postal mailbox and looked for junk mail. If a piece of mail were evaluated to have sufficient junkosity on the junk-o-meter, then this person would place the alleged junk mail in a thick, well-sealed envelope, and write all the reasons on the outside that the mail should go unexamined (sex, Nigeria, notices about departmental standing-committee meetings).
All of this is well and good if you are disciplined and unfailingly honor Spam Assassin's evaluation of what you should and should not read. The problem is: Spam Assassin sometimes misses its mark. I have had email completely devoid of sex, Nigerian bank scams, and information about departmental standing-commitee meetings) falsely accused of spamness. And with explanations of its thinking that rival Faulkner in their magnitude, wading through Spam now takes me 3 times longer than before.
And then I find that innocent mail I have sent has been libelled as spam. The mail was sent to a friend of mine who runs a biotech firm, suggesting that the two of us get together for a stick and puck session at Creve Coeur. He didn't get my mail because his corporate Spam Assassin thought my mail was spam.
If only my imagination were as fertile, so to speak, as Spam Assassin's!
Today is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashannah in Hebrew. Don Imus has called it Hush Yo' Mama. Jewish scientists from ages past determined the the world started some 5762 years ago; modern science informs us they were a little off, but what do you expect from a people that took 40 years after leaving Egypt to find what's now Israel -- we get lost easily. Or maybe we didn't stop to ask directions.
I've tried to explain the significance of this holiday to my friends. My best friend from high school, Robert , readily understood the significance: he could get out of school if he claimed he celebrated Rosh Hashannah. So, like so many of us, he was a Jew two days out of the year (Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur -- I'll try to post about Yom Kippur later).
Our sages claim that most Jewish Holidays can be easily summarized by the following formula:
- They tried to kill us
- We won
- Let's eat
I've posted previously concerning the significance of food at Jewish events. While Rosh Hashannah doesn't involve anybody trying to eliminate us, food is nonetheless a pivotal element of the celebration. In a move that tends to surprise most observers of the "Red Sea Pedestrians", Yom Kippur involves no food at all -- one fasts for about 24 hours with no food or even water.
Rosh Hashannah has been described as a time of "turning" -- from Summer to Fall, from outside to in as one reflects on one's life, from a Temple with apparently 200 families to one with over 2000.
I have gotten to know myself pretty well, and I find myself resisting Rosh Hashannah each year, but it is a force not easily ignored. It's a moment of elevation before descending into the pit of one's soul, to examine what went wrong and to try to figure out where to go from here.
So, readers, the jocularity of this blog may wane over the next 10 days as this blog and blogger reflects on their purpose in life. But in times like this, wane is in the forecast.
I didn't think my blog would come to this, but I cannot resist offering commentary on the policy of network usage in the "pooled" classrooms found in buildings "owned" by the College of Arts and Sciences (hereafter, abbreviated "C of A and Ss"). I have the pleasure of teaching in January Hall this semester, which has a nice video projection system, in-room computer, and Ethernet network connection. Although the room is "pooled" meaning that it can be scheduled for any University class, the room is "owned" by the C of A and Ss, which means that the video and network is under their control.
Now in previous semesters, espeically when teaching 101, I have had to dessicate the dreaded Chemistry Key Ogre, liquidate the Louderman Network Troll, and outwit the Earth and Planetary Sciences Demons -- these nemeses have been all too easily dispatched. But thise semester I have met my match in the DHCP Dragon.
Mkato , my humble laptop that can attack without notice, accompanied me a few days before classes started to try to get hooked up to the lecture hall's video projection system and network. The video projection system worked fine, but alas, the network....
I could not get an IP address from the DHCP server. I was told that C of A and Ss is concerned about security, so access via DHCP was restricted and I had to get registered to use it. I was asked to fill out this form with the MAC address of my Ethernet card and to supply the requisite information.
Now those of us in Engineering know that the Arts and Sciences computers have more security holes than Swiss Cheese running Windows '98. Students in C of A and Ss pick really tricky passwords like their first or last name. Outsiders then break into their accounts, sniff other passwords (like root), and then start attacking other machines on campus. It's a game the whole family can play.
The registration page to get DHCP access prompts me for my cec or artsci password. Who needs this to register my MAC address? And guess what? That page isn't transmitted using SSL -- they might as well auction off my password on eBay.
Meanwhile, the computer hooked up to the system in the room is completely open and anybody can use it. Also, the shutdown-feature of the room's projection system yanks power from that computer, leaving it in the sorry state of having to check its disk on the next reboot.
Security, right! I think C of A and Ss is starting a new collection -- professors' passwords.
OK, here's my first multimedia post, but I can't claim credit for the production of this most excellent video. Click here and be sure to have your sound turned up.
Videos like this may soon take over the entertainment world.
Members of Washington University's Emergency Medical Response Team were summoned to Graham Chapel this morning when a student was discovered unconscious about 50 yards from the Chapel. Emergency personnel were successful in reviving the individual, whose identity in this account will be represented as "X" -- not the student's true name -- so as to protect his or her privacy in this sensitive matter.
Once Student X's vital signs were ascertained as stable, X gave the following summary of what transpired. At or around noon, the student was walking near Graham Chapel when the building's carillon began first to sound the time of day and then to play some music.
Just prior to the carillon's actions, the student was marveling at the Chapel itself. The chapel is famous for being nearly a replica of a chapel-like structure that might have been constructed in the spirit of Christ Church at Oxford University. The Chapel sports window-ish aperatures featuring stained-like glass depicting pseudo-religious scenes. The Moeller organ has impressive facade pipes surrounding the stage, and is voiced in a manner that faithfully imitates organs of both the Baroque and Romatic eras. The walls are graced with sconce-like fixtures treated to look centuries old while providing modern levels of lumenosity.
The carillon recently underwent a renovation during which it was almost replaced with a real, mechanical carillon. Thankfully, clearer heads prevailed and the carillon remains a device that simulates almost authentic, carillon-like sounds.
The student, admiring the almost-Gothic architecture, knew that something was amiss when the carillon began to sound. Feeling slightly disoriented, the sensation worsened with each digitally controlled, pitch-accurate note. Confronted with the utter falseness of it all, nausea set in when the carillon began to play "We've Only Just Begun" as popularized by the Carpenters. The student lapsed into a psuedocoma, feignting [sic] on the spot.
EMS personnel advise staying clear of the carillon if you have any aesthetic sensibilities, or if you have a family history of pseudophobia---fear of false things. "We see this all the time around here", remarked one EMS attendant, "so it's good that we are trained to respond to pseudophobics". Such training is rigorous, as the EMS personnel must themselves become desensitized to substances and sounds that induce pseudocoma. "We listen to Barry Manilow records until we can stay in the sound room for 3 minute without passing out."
So here's to our University's EMS team, making our University a psafer place for pseudoarchitecture, pseudocarillons, and pseudomusic.
This log has languished due to my trip to Dallas to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of my nephew Bryan. Because some of you out there may not be familiar with the notion of Bar Mitzvah, I thought I'd use this occasion to comment on this rite of passage.
Most people who attend a Bar Mitzvah believe the word is the name of a good caterer, but that's not the case. Literally, Bar Mitzvah means "son of Mitzvah" and Mitzvah is something I will explain shortly. This celebration takes place near a child's 13th birthday. In days of yore, only boys were afforded the rite of Bar Mitzvah, but the custom has been extended to girls through the grammatically correct Bat Mitzvah -- "daughter of Mitzvah". In both cases, food is served.
In days of yore, only first names were given and the last name was "Ben
The concept of Mitzvah is difficult and tangled, as it involves both imperatives given in the Bible as well as application through action. It thus combines both theory and practice. Sages have been searching for a Mitzvah concerning the types and quantities of food that must be served, but so far have come up empty. Nonetheless, food is served.
For example, one Mitzvah is
Do not place a stumbling block before the blind
But this can be taken metaphorically to include the installation of ramps for wheelchairs, Braille notation in elevators and other public places, and large-print versions of printed material.
So the idea is to take one of the 613 Mitzvot that are in the 5 books of Moses, and apply it literally or metaphorically to connect actions with the teachings. It is impossible for any individual to do all 613, because some are for women, some for men, some involve animal sacrifice, etc. As far as I know, there is no scoreboard, but if the Mitzvot are good things, then it seems reasonable to look for opportunities to do them.
A Bar Mitzvah celebration has become a rite of passage, as a child enters puberty and turns into an adult. Relatives come from all over the place, there is lots of food, and everybody (except maybe the Bar Mitzvah kid who might be kind of nervious about all this attention) has a great time.
While the Bar Mitzvah can be somewhat unnervingfor the child at-hand, it's probably a lot more comfortable than his previous Jewish ceremonial experience of Bris or ritual circumcision (I'll post about that if here is sufficient interest--even that ritual is incomplete without food).
The ceremony of Bar Mitzvah calls for the child to read from the Torah (Bible), and the child will usually conduct portions of the Shabbat (Sabbath) service. And of course, food is served.
My nephew did a great job, we were all proud, and we were well fed. If the Jewish people are "the people of the book" it may be in dispute whether the book was written by Moses or Betty Crocker.