Weaver VS World

Juvenile Delinquents

2010.07.23

I found myself mulling over a discussion in our class in History and Moral Philosophy. Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century. According to him, there was a time just before they went down the drain when such crimes as Dillinger's were as common as dog-fights. The Terror had not been just in North America—Russia, and the British Isles had it, too, as well as other places. But it reached its peak in North America shortly before things went to pieces.

"Law-abiding people," Dubois had told us, "hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons ... to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably—or even killed. This went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places—these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark."

I had tried to imagine such things happening in our schools. I simply couldn't. Nor in our parks. A park was a place for fun, not for getting hurt. As for getting killed in one—"Mr. Dubois, didn't they have police? Or courts?"

"They had many more police than we have. And more courts. All overworked."

"I guess I don't get it." If a boy in our city had done anything half that bad ... well, he and his father would have been flogged side by side. But such things just didn't happen.

Mr. Dubois then demanded of me, "Define a 'juvenile delinquent.'"

"Uh, one of those kids—the ones who used to beat up people."

"Wrong."

"Huh? But the book said—"

"My apologies. Your textbook does so state. But calling a tail a leg does not make the name fit. 'Juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms, one which gives a clue to their problem and their failure to solve it. Have you ever raised a puppy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you housebreak him?"

"Err ... yes, sir. Eventually." It was my slowness in this that caused my mother to rule that dogs must stay out of the house.

"Ah, yes. When your puppy made mistakes, were you angry?"

"What? Why, he didn't know any better; he was just a puppy."

"What did you do?"

"Why, I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it and paddled him."

"Surely he could not understand your words?"

"No, but he could tell I was sore at him!"

"But you just said that you were not angry."

Mr. Dubois had an infuriating way of getting a person mixed up. "No, but I had to make him think I was. He had to learn, didn't he?"

"Conceded. But, having made it clear to him that you disapproved, how could you be so cruel as to spank him as well? You said the poor beastie didn't know that he was doing wrong. Yet you inflicted pain. Justify yourself! Or are you a sadist?"

I didn't know what a sadist was—but I knew pups. "Mr. Dubois, you have to! You scold him so that he knows he's in trouble, you rub his nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so that he darn well won't do it again—and you have to do it right away! It doesn't do a bit of good to punish him later; you'll just confuse him. Even so, he won't learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again and paddle him still harder. Pretty soon he learns. But it's a waste of breath just to scold him." Then I added, "I guess you've never raised pups."

"Many. I'm raising a dachshund now—by your methods. Let's get back to those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat younger than you here in this class ... and they often started their lawless careers much younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret—in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage."

(I had reflected that my father must never have heard of that theory.)

"Corporal punishment in schools was forbidden by law," he had gone on. "Flogging was lawful as sentence of court only in one small province, Delaware, and there only for a few crimes and was rarely invoked; it was regarded as 'cruel and unusual punishment.'" Dubois had mused aloud, "I do not understand objections to 'cruel and unusual' punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment—and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism? However, that period was loaded with pre-scientific pseudo-psychological nonsense."

As for 'unusual,' punishment must be unusual or it serves no purpose." He then pointed his stump at another boy. "What would happen if a puppy were spanked every hour?"

"Uh ... probably drive him crazy!"

"Probably. It certainly will not teach him anything. How long has it been since the principal of this school last had to switch a pupil?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. About two years. The kid that swiped—"

"Never mind. Long enough. It means that such punishment is so unusual as to be significant, to deter, to instruct. Back to these young criminals—They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for their crimes. The usual sequence was: for a first offense, a warning—a scolding, often without trial. After several offenses a sentence of confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on probation. A boy might be arrested many times and convicted several times before he was punished—and then it would be merely confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given probation—"paroled" in jargon of the times.

"This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so-called 'juvenile delinquent' becomes an adult criminal—and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death cell awaiting execution for murder. You—"

He had singled me out again. "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken—whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please?"

"Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!"

"I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?"

"Uh ... why, mine, I guess."

"Again I agree. But I'm not guessing."

"Mr. Dubois," a girl blurted out, "but why? Why didn't they spank little kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any older ones who deserved it—the sort of lesson they wouldn't forget! I mean ones who did things really bad. Why not?"

"I don't know," he had answered grimly, "except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves 'social workers' or somethings 'child psychologists.' It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a puppy. I have sometimes wondered if they cherished a vested interest in disorder—but that is unlikely; adults almost always act from conscious 'highest motives' no matter what their behavior."

But—good heavens!" the girl answered. "I didn't like being spanked any more than any kid does, but when I needed it, my mama delivered. The only time I ever got a switching in school I got another one when I got home—and that was years and years ago. I don't ever expect to be hauled up in front of a judge and sentenced to a flogging; you behave yourself and such things don't happen. I don't see anything wrong with our system; it's a lot better than not being able to walk outdoors for fear of your life—why, that's horrible!"

"I agree. Young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their motives), but their theory was wrong—half of it fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray. You see, they assumed that Man has a moral instinct."

"Sir? I thought— But he does! I have."

"No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not—and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind. These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences did not permit it. What is 'moral sense'? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in the future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do.

"But the instinct to survive," he had gone on, "can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your 'moral instinct' was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive—and nowhere else!—and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.

"We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race—we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.' Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing.

"These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to 'appeal to their better natures,' to 'reach them,' to 'spark their moral sense.' Tosh! They had no 'better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be 'moral.'

"The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand—that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights.'

"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? IF two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

"The third 'right'?—the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me kings of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.

"And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' ... and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure."

—Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.) and History and Moral Philosophy class of John Rico in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers

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Weaver VS. The Dominator

2009.11.13

Weaver

• Height: 6'
• Weight: 195 lbs.
• Armed: Screwdriver, Wits
• Weakness: Temper

MOLD-RITE 2100fx DOMINATOR

• Height: 1' 4"
• Weight: 28 lbs.
• Armed: DOS 6.22 (Upgraded), FAT16 Filesystem
• Weakness: 2 GiB Max Partition Size (FAT16)

There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing a person, obviously defeated, walk into my office and place a piece of hardware that is 20+ years old on my desk with instructions "Here, fix this" ... on Friday the 13th.

Between the whine of the spindle motor bearings and the look of defeat on those that tried before I knew I was in for a treat.

It is not too often in 2009 that MS-DOS skills come in handy. Today I was happy that I spent so much time in DOS as a boy, hiding porn in compressed and password protected zip files courtesy of Phil Katz (R.I.P.) and PKWare, Inc.

With the PLC control application unable to launch I spent a few minutes figuring out how the pre-launch tests were conducted in the launch batch file and soon noticed that the main system drive was out of disk space. Empty, nada, zilch... 0 bytes free.

It was at this point that I got to thinking about how there was a time when operating systems could run with zero hard disk space available. They wouldn't freeze, the kernel wouldn't panic, life would go on. Days go by.

Spoke with the client and informed them of our plan to pull the drive, clone, and expand the partition to 2 GiB.

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am and a little DOS foo and the PLC control PC was back in business.

Winner: Weaver

-John "This is not in my job description. This BIOS better support LBA" Urbanek

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Competent Man

2009.10.30

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

-John "Who is John Galt?" Urbanek

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How Many Years?

2008.12.03

Has Bushy, Dick, Rummy, and Wolfowitz set us back in foreign policy? 10? 20? 30? Maybe more?

http://www.wimp.com/bushfails/

-John

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"Dude, We Are Out of Asswipe..."

2008.12.03

No Problem.

Step 1 - Reappropriation & Fabrication

Step 2 - Implementation

Step 3 - Cleanup & Surplus Storage

-John "What do you mean they didn't have triple ply with aloe?" Urbanek

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The American Heart Assocation Owes Me $200

2008.11.18

It is no secret that I enjoy eating. So much that at times I tend to get a little... excited and forget important nuances that many take for granted. Things like eating at or on a table. Chewing food. Things like preparing the food according to common sense instruction instead of "winging it." Or my personal favorite, changing out of dress clothing before consuming food that, based on historical fact, will be destroyed during the meal.

There comes to mind the time, many years ago now that a single stint with reheated spaghetti managed to stain every, that's every piece of clothing I decided to put on that morning. The affair can be broken into two phases; i. Outerwear and ii. Underwear.

After a few fork twirls of pasta it was time for a meatball. That's when it all came down. In my excitement, the meatball slipped off (let's be honest, it wasn't securely attached) the fork and made contact with the collar of my rugby shirt. Like the opening drop on a roller coaster the seasoned ball of animal carcass obeyed gravity and on the way down bounced off my belt buckle, rolled down my pants and as unnecessary as a kick in the [meat]balls skidded across the sock on my right foot. Staring at the meatball in bewilderment I gasped "Come on!?"

In my excitement to continue the meal I removed the rugby shirt, denim pants, and socks. Begin phase two. Like Steven Seagal in Marked for Death, I was as confused as hell to find out that Screwface the meatball had a twin brother. Following in his brother's footsteps he finished off my undershirt and boxer shorts on his journey from my fork to the floor.

"I hope there weren't triplets." -John Hatcher

Pomegranates and You

Which leads us to today... The lesson learned? Pay the extra and purchase the pomegranate arils pre-plucked by the underpaid grocery staff. If you've never prepared a pomegranate for consumption, prepare for the following.

• Staining and/or destroying most of what you are wearing.
• Staining any and all walls, countertops, cutting boards, floors, and garbage can lids.
• Enduring David Lopan like temporary blindness when a popped aril volleys juice into your peepers.
• Explaining what looks like a murder scene from C.S.I. to anyone unfortunate enough to witness the slaying of the pomegranate membrane and fleshy arils.

-John "I would give you spiced wine to drink from the juice of my pomegranates" Urbanek

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Word.

2008.11.05

I chose Barrack Obama because he didn't bomb anything. If he somehow dies some stupid person will not get in ofice. Obama is not an oil tycoon yay.

Some other advantiges are he is young and not senile. Barrack Obama is against the war in Iraq. He is a good sport because he didn't sue the Daily show for that funny Obama thing.

Why I don't want Mccain is because he bombed Vietnom. He got dum as bricks Sara Palline as Vice Presindent. So if he somehow gets in ofice and dies boom dum as bricks Sara Paline get in and we are all DOOMED EVEN MORE.

Why I hate Sara Paline is because she hunts animals. Sara and Mccain are both oil monkeys or tycoons. Sara Paline belives in the bible but it says they're was no dinosaurs so. WHERE IS THE STUPID OIL COMING from?

I hope this helps you not chose Mccain. I'm done with this

-Pablo Volaric, Age 11, 9/19/08

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"Same thing we do everynight Pinky..."

2008.10.30

Besides Angelina Jolie, techno music, and a 28.8 bps modem what is the most important aspect of a hacker's workstation? Displays, displays, displays. Not all of us come with the skills of Dade Murphy a.k.a. Crash Override a.k.a. Zero Cool a.k.a. Jonny Lee Miller a.k.a. Eli Stone. Yeah, surprised me too. One day you're crashing fifteen hundred seven computers while swimming naked with Angelina Jolie, the next it hits you that a law degree leaves you ill-equipped to handle an aneurysm that lets you talk to God. But who cares, Katie Holmes returned to network television.

How to take over the world if you are not one of Jonny Lee Miller's collective alter egos Dade Mur... Eli Sto... Elade Smurphy? Now there's an idea. A blackhat stealing wireless from his lamer neighbors with a Pringles Cantenna stumbles upon the HolyNet. After going 0:100 on de_dust to a mysterious player known only as 33_aND-CoUNTing he receives an email from teh_JC@whosyourdaddy.jobs listing Smurphy's first assignments. First, stake out this "Cain" guy's PC. Rumors are flying around that he has been into the Anarchist Cookbook and learning illegal Government ninja moves. Second, investigate the increase in spyware related support calls and porn traffic coming from the Soddom and Gomorrah netblocks. I sense an Emmy.

Back to world domination. A minimum of four displays are required. One for each major inhabited land mass. One for North America, South America, Africa and Eurasia. Antarctica and Australia you ask? Penguins, fur-seals, and Vegemite. Box 'em up, send 'em to Mexico if you're concerned. Introduce them to tequila and handguns, the rest will sort itself out.

-John "Federal Reserve Regulation T ate my homework" Urbanek

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What are the odds? Seriously...

2008.10.21

What are the odds? Seriously. Nothing like lightning striking your winning PowerBALL ticket in hand while standing on an unmowed patch of four leaf clovers, but pretty cool nonetheless.

It's a regular Monday morning. I am happily hacking away at a demo of Orion NPM monitoring a fleet of Cisco Routers. Skype rings and flashes with an unknown number. I pickup and answer with my standard work greeting, "Hello, this is John." The caller responds, "This is Matt [surname removed] from OfficeDepot, can I speak with Sheila please." I inform the caller, "No Sheila here, think you have the wrong number." "Sorry about that. Well, if you see her please let her know her order has arrived for pickup and thank you for using OfficeDepot."

At this point I am confused. Sheila? Don't know her. OfficeDepot? Never set foot in one.

Not two seconds after the call ended did my eyes dart up and to the left as the visual recall systems were putting together a small puzzle triggered by the name and ineptitude of an OfficeDepot employee.

Ah-ha! I knew him. Worked with him at DataWave six years ago. He was the bumbling Sales Engin... idiot who had difficulties grasping IP addresses and their "use of dots instead of commas." Mind you this was a guy selling re-branded Internet T1's and DSL. I spent fifteen minutes helping him enter data into an Excel spreadsheet only to find out that rows and columns were the same thing "at his school." Hard to forget someone with that level of mastery.

So what are the chances of answering the phone to a legitimately dialed wrong number *and* knowing the person on the other end?

Well? I decided to find out. Make note that what follows cannot be considered accurate. Many assumptions are made. It is an order of magnitude estimate, and a poor one at that. Any correctness should be assumed coincidental and the mathematical equivalent of throwing rocks at a cliff face resulting in an exact replica of one of [King] Richard Petty's personalized belt buckles.

Physics 201 Taught Me Things

Like how many New York Sewer rats would be required to feed the rabid fans at Lambeau Field for four quarters of football. Or how much gas would have to be passed from the asses of those Packer fans and burned in the grilling equipment to prepare the rats for consumption. Needless to say, the system is not a perpetual motion machine in disguise.

How Many Names Can You Recognize?

Back to the task at hand. I'll define knowing the person on the other end to recognizing their name. According to "Contacts and influence." (Direct PDF) and other sources online this number is somewhere between 500 and 5,000 persons with the average around 3,000 depending on the individual.

Number of Calls Made Per Soul Per Time

The latest Federal Communications Commission Trends in Telephone Service from 2005 (latest), table 10.2 lists the combined number of both local and toll calls to be 505,834,870,000. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the population of the U.S. in 2005 to be 295,895,897 souls. (Say goodbye to sig figs right now) This divides to around 4.68 calls made per person per day, 32.8 calls per person per week. Bear in mind that this calculation includes all souls, of all ages. The eleven month old diaper wearing, eating, sleeping, shitting apple of somebody's eye to the eleven hundred month old diaper wearing, eating, sleeping, shitting, living holdup on a will. All chattin' away. Note: Since two parties are involved in a given call, the numbers also correspond to the average number of calls received per soul per time.

Number of Wrong Numbers Received Per Soul Per Time

Seeing as I could find absolutely no research in this field, I had to do it myself. I made calls to people I know and flat out asked them. My sample size is 32... ish. Funny enough, I even dialed a wrong number, which I later found out is in line with my results. Averaging out all of the responses I determined people to receive on average 2.1 wrong numbers per month, which divides (for the month of February anyway) to 0.53 wrong numbers per week, and 0.08 wrong numbers per day. This data sucks on the grounds of insufficient sample size, sample distribution, lack of formal questioning of samples, lack of statistical methods, and an altogether lack of effort.

Putting it all Together

Note: Percentages are used as results below, remember to shift the decimal point for non-percentage representation.

First it is necessary to calculate the chance that a given call will be a wrong number. 0.08 wrong numbers per day divided by 4.68 calls per day gives a 1.7% chance that a given call will be a wrong number.

Next, let us determine the chance that you will *recognize* the name of a person sampled at random from the United States of America. Assuming the average of 3,000 recognizable names and a population of 295,895,897 souls, this gives a 0.001% chance.

Now the chance that a given call will be a wrong number multiplied by the chance that you will recognize the name of a random person from the United States of America gives us a chance of 0.00002%.

Conclusion

• There is a 1.7% chance that your next received call will be a wrong number.
• There is a 0.001% chance that you will recognize the name of the person on the other end of your next received wrong number.
• There is a 0.00002% chance that your next received call will be a wrong number and you will recognize the person on the other end.
• There is a 0.0002% chance that you will be struck by lightning in a given year.
• One in 5,000,000 calls a person receives will result in a received wrong number where the receiving party recognizes the calling party's name.
• At a call rate of 4.68 received calls per day (and 4.68 dialed calls per day) it would take 3,000 years for this event to happen to a given person.
• However, in the grand scheme of daily call volume this happens in the United States of America around three hundred times per day. Around ten times per hour. Once every ten minutes. So it is more common across the populace than it would seem.

Final Thoughts

I am not that special. It is highly probable that I am terrible with probability. In the words of my former roommate, "I just did the math, I'm gonna fail Calc."

-John "What are the odds of Metallica's Death Magnetic rocking your socks off?" Urbanek

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Just For You, Dave...

2007.09.11

Everyone else can move along, nothing to see here.

Seanny In His Boxers...

It's about time... IF, DT, CoB, and Sonata Arctica have all made appearances. Wanna duel?

-John "God Bless America" Urbanek

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