lumrant
Saturday, January 31, 2004
John Diet 2004 Update: A Crushing Blow
(click for larger image)
It is a dark day indeed. After a day or so of Twin Gorging after my brother's arrival, the horrible truth revealed itself: John has gained 2 1/2 pounds since his last weigh-in, and Knave turned out to be a pound lighter than had been hoped.
So, the gap stands at 2 1/2 pounds, and the overall weight loss trend is likely to continue its reversal through Super Bowl Sunday, but the plan is to get back on the wagon next week. I'll catch you yet, Knave!
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Does Mom have the dreaded Mydoom virus? It would make for much hilarity if she did!
Or is this just the result of some irritating hanger-on spammer who just wants to get people worried that they have the virus? Here's what Mommer got in her e-mail box today:
> The following message had attachment(s) which contained viruses:Mom insists that she hasn't mailed these people, and considering that lmcewen@psdssab.org appears to be affiliated with the Parris Sound (Ontario) District Social Services Administration Board, we can assume that Mommer is correct.
>
> From : jlum@oldercar.com
> To : lmcewen@psdssab.org
> Subject : MAIL DELIVERY SYSTEM
> Date : Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:15:37 -0500
> Message-ID:
>
> Attachment Virus name Action taken
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> text.zip I-Worm.Mydoom.a Removed
>
>
So, what the hell? Perhaps a Google search to see if this is a known hoax?
Hmm...apparently, this message is the work of some anti-virus extension to the MDaemon mail server from alt-n Technologies. Legit, it would seem.
And since we know Mom didn't send the e-mail that prompted the "I removed your virus-ridden attachment" reply, I suppose we have to suspect that the e-mail that prompted the reply above was actually sent by the Mydoom-ridden computer of someone who did get nailed by the virus. Maybe one of the things the virus does is spam out mails and spoof the apparent sender addresses based on the address book of the infected user. So, the question becomes: which of Mommer's regular e-mail correspondents is infected?
I say it's Knave. Or maybe Jeff Havrilla!
Speaking of Jeff Havrilla, did anyone else see the news where you can now sign up to get gub'mint-sent e-mail notifications about cyber-security? It's the exciting "National Cyber Alert System," proof that Tom Ridge is doing something besides making dire announcements and changing colors on a big board from time to time!
Is it me, or does nobody in his right mind want to start getting security spams from the government? Jeff needs to rise up out of the shackles of CERT's government takeover and put a stop to this!
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
John Diet 2004 Update: Knave Caught and Passed!
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Arrhhnnnhg! Now, the only drama is whether or not I can retain my lead moving into this weekend, when Knave and Alyssa will visit and we can have ourselves a good old fashioned weigh-off!
Arrrrrrrnh!
Sent the following self-righteous message to a former professor of mine at MIT who is involved in the process of choosing MIT's next president. Heady stuff, considering that I'm an alum who hasn't given MIT a dime in the last two years!
You, too, can submit your opinions at:
http://web.mit.edu/president/search/comments.html
"Kirk Kolenbrander, good to see you playing a vital role in something like this at MIT! I still fondly glance at my Solymar & Walsh 3.15 book from time to time, and I would like to again extend my personal gratitude for the vitality that you brought to my undergraduate classroom at MIT.
Here's hoping you and the Committee can identify a suitably "Lincolnesque" individual to become MIT's 16th president.
I'm going to mention two things that I personally feel strongly about when it comes to MIT's vision:
1. I would love to see a president who has a strong bent toward the philosophical side of technology--science/technology ethics and the implications of technology on our society. It would be great to see MIT become even more active in topics such as intellectual property/patent/copyright issues, the role of science in guiding public policy decisions in state and national government, openness in education, and related issues in other sociological institutions. I feel that, once you get past the obvious nuts and bolts of research and development, the most important issues regarding technology are the philosophical ones, which will increasingly "stem" from information-oriented conflicts as time goes by (a little biotech joke there). I believe that this transformation is occurring more quickly than almost anyone can appreciate, and MIT can play a strong role to help guide it.
2. On a more practical front, I feel that MIT could do a lot more to prepare their undergraduates for careers in the business world. Certainly, there are opportunities in this area for undergraduates, but I feel that the "typical" undergraduate does not get sufficient exposure to practical business issues, particularly in contrast to other schools. I'm not saying that MIT needs to embrace a Northeastern-like model, but I do feel that more integration with the business community via internship and co-op programs would be a very positive development for the student body. I'm dimly aware of evolutional changes in programs such as VI-A, and of the emergence of the UPOP program, and I am very supportive. Academia and business are two starkly different destinations for your students, and I think MIT should be a leader in preparing students for either path.
My two cents,
John Lum
jwlum@alum.mit.edu"
Monday, January 26, 2004
Had a fun time this evening attending a talk with Jeanie at the Center for Global Something Or Other down at USF. The speaker was a spry old guy from Princeton named Richard Falk who was supposed to talk about "Globalization, Democracy, and Human Rights," but instead decided to spend an hour railing on the unilateralist policies of the Bush administration!
Sister-mockery aside, my recent reading came in very handy, as Dr. Falk spent almost all his time covering the same materials I had recently seen in The End of History and Rogue Nation.
Sadly, they really hustled us through the Q&A portion of things (to Jeanie's dismay as well), and I wasn't able to get in on it. One of the questions I wanted to ask the guy is what sort of practical things he felt the citizenry could be doing to have the maximum impact this election year.
Overall, it was surprising to see such a partisan talk, and you could tell that certain people in the room were discomfited by it. It was reassuring, on the whole, to see that the USF audience seemed like a typical left-wing college crowd, but it was fun to trail one young woman who left the place berating herself for not walking out and, instead, sticking around to hear "that guy blast our President for 45 minutes!" Good blasting it was. Go, Dr. Falk!
Sunday, January 25, 2004
John Diet 2004 Backsliding!
Jeanie and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner at Lee Roy Selmon's, and as a result I ate a shitload. We'll see what the horrible toll on my diet efforts is this Wednesday...
Saturday, January 24, 2004
John Diet 2004 Update
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Pace...slowing... Difficult...to...resist...food...
But I have decided on a formal goal, and that goal is 175 pounds. We'll see now next Wednesday's weigh-in looks!
I have become, with apologies to James Humphrey, "Johnny Letter!"
Lately I have spent my days making angry phone calls and writing angry letters to a diverse body of companies who have been unfortunate enough to semi-screw me now that I have lots of time on my hands. It is paying off, too--in the last three days, I've gotten about $55 credited to my Mastercard and I got Allstate to give me a car insurance policy that is over $200 cheaper than my Geico policy!
Now that I have put myself forcibly in this mindset, I can see the potential for addiction. We'll see how it goes. I guess there's only so much money you can _save_ before you have to go out and start earning it...
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
John Diet 2004 Update
(click for larger image of exciting John vs. Knave chart)
Thanks to my manly metabolism, I have been able to lose an exciting 6 pounds in 7 days! My goal: drop down below my brother. Anything that happens after that (including ballooning back up to 200 pounds) is immaterial!
How have I done it so far? It's quite complicated: I Have Eaten Less. And exercised a little bit. Jeanie has been helping to force us to take walks, a la Jennifer and Marty.
My current goal: catch my damned brother by next week!
Monday, January 19, 2004
Dean gets his ass kicked in Iowa! And Kerry seems strong in New Hampshire. I still feel like Dean is the best ideological match for me, but there's not much I can do if the democrats on the whole decide that he's not the guy to beat Bush.
Go Dean!
Could not resist this free trial! It was pretty cool--from phone to Web site post in about 5 seconds. I'm not dedicated enough to want to pay money for such a thing, but it's definitely a neat service.
audio post powered by audblogHere are a few ideas for writing topics:
- "Open Source People" - I think this would be a good title for some sort of work on transhumanism. Good for right now, anyway, because it could hijack the currently popular "Open Source" terminology to make the concepts more accessible to readers (and seem more positive, to boot).
- Identical twins in history and thymos - The idea here is "write about what you know," and I know what it's like to be an identical twin. The idea was spurred in my head while reading Fukuyama's The End of History, which makes a great case for the idea of "thymos," or the human need for recognition, as a primary driving factor for human behavior. I then wondered to myself who were among the most famous identical twins in history (Romulus and Remus? Chang and Eng?), and whether or not identical twins have attained proportional levels of greatness in comparison to the rest of the population.
I have a pet theory that says identical twins have a special sense of thymos that doesn't require as much external recognition, because there's an internal sense of confidence that another person extremely similar to you is already out there. My feeling is that an entertaining book could be woven that covers various sets of twins in history and puts the thymos idea out there as well. - Why We Believe - I like Shermer's books on our belief patterns, and I'm sure there's a plethora of books out there on what makes people believe, but I'd be interested in writing another. I'd come at it from the "Arab and Jew" perspective of interviewing a crapload of people and seeing what sort of lessons could be teased out. I'm fascinated by the concept of the transformative conversion experience (a la Saul), and I'd be interested to catalog why different people develop and retain a strong religious faith in modern society.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Here are the results of the quiz I took on pbs.org with Jeanie to see which Democratic candidates I actually sided with on the various issues.
PBS did a good job of making it blind and randomized, so it seems pretty objective. The drawback, of course, is that so many of the candidates have essentially identical positions on most of the major issues. Jeanie was disappointed by this, but I see it as a positive: I'm free to use more subjective reasons to get behind Dean. I basically like Dean because:
- He seems unusually blunt and free from spin. Not completely without spin, of course, but more straightforward than just about everyone else.
- I strongly believe that you can't beat the right-wing conservatives at their own game, meaning that hate won't get it done and liberal/progressive perspectives need to be embraced and validated. Dean seems to buy into that. So be it if he continues to be compared with McGovern in '72.
- He seems pretty free from dogmatic religious belief.
Transplanted this thing so that it lives on the new johnandjeanie.com site now--maybe I will actually update it! It's funny to look back at my first post back in June and think how long it's been.
I've read a heck of a lot since then, though I have not managed to write anything or really move in a new direction with myself. Not that the idea for the direction is bad (Evangelist of Raisin, as Heather says), but some sort of action needs to ensue.
One thing I'm trying to do is get involved in the Howard Dean campaign. I've given some money now and put some events on my calendar. Here's hoping I do something there.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
John Diet 2004 Kickoff
This is a retroactive post (done safely after I lost at least _some_ weight) to mark the beginning of John Diet 2004. Jeanie and I went to our little Tampa Palms Club gym for the first time tonight, and after my "workout" I clocked in at 197 pounds. Off my all-time corpulent high from Thanksgiving, but fairly bad nevertheless. Ample opportunity for my brother to "check me with my bulk."
So, let the low-calorie days and occasional exercising commence!
