Abbe Normal

fozbaca Flutterby Enemy of State just like that Mary Ann

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On September 11, thousands of people lost their lives. Who is losing what now? The U.S. government is authorizing itself to spy on the people more easily, while the people are losing access to information about the government. Dissidents elsewhere are also losing more rights ( Asian Regimes Appear to Use War on Terror to Stem Dissent, Rights groups plan Harare protest). Non-U.S.-citizens have lost the right to civilian justice (how would you like to be executed in a secret trial?) Somalis lose Internet access Fewer people are travelling internationally, and any crackdown on student visas will further damage mutual understanding internationally. This is a time when we need more understanding among people -- connections other than government to government. Think PeerToPeer?, think MultiTrackDiplomacy. With the loss of mutual understanding we lose security. Dave Winer has started a directory of acts diminishing U.S. freedoms; even The Economist is worried that governments are over-reacting. The point of all this is not to alarm you and leave you hopeless. You have the power to do something about it! Join and participate in CivilRightsOrganizations?, and ContactYourRepresentatives and let them know what you think of all this. In addition to resistance, work on BuildingActivities. Sun Nov 25 01:23:23 2001

Who Is Losing What

The Green Tortoise's commuter run up and down the U.S. west coast was much more pleasant than a Greyhound or Amtrak. Whoever you sat with, it seemed like you couldn't miss in having good things to talk about. I mean i've lucked into nice people to talk with on other transit, but not with everyone on the bus. I miss the service (suspended last year), and i'll bet you do to if you're lucky enough to have ever ridden on them. I'm travelling up and down the U.S. west coast for the next week or so, and i contacted them to see if service had been re-established. I got on e-mail saying they're refocusing on their adventure travel, and may never bring it back! I let them know i'd really appreciate it; if you're moved to, please let them know of your support for it too. Sun Nov 25 01:16:02 2001

Bring Back The Green Tortoise

As part of the PikiePikie upgrade, you can now get RssSyndication feeds: for the AbbeNormal weblog itself: RSS 0.92 and 1.0 RecentChanges for the entire wiki: RSS 0.92 and 1.0 See RssReaders about reading RSS from AbbeNormal and other wikis and weblogs. Also new in PikiePikie 0.4 we have Pikie:PikieTextInTemplate (use pikie -- wiki+ -- markup rather than HTML markup in templates), ... Thu Nov 22 06:37:13 2001

Abbe Normal Rss Feeds And More

Flutterby points me to Red Hat's offer to provide open-source software to every school district in the United States free of charge, "encouraging Microsoft to redirect the money it would have spent on software into purchasing more hardware for the 14,000 poorest school districts. Under the Red Hat proposal, by removing Microsoft's higher-priced software from the settlement equation, Microsoft could provide the school districts with many more computers--greatly extending the benefits Microsoft seeks to provide school districts with their proposed settlement." (if you hadn't heard, Microsoft is trying to settle a huge class action suit from individuals, separate from the U.S. federal/state case that might be half-settled.) Full disclosure, i do own some RedHat? stock. And no, you can't buy it! Thu Nov 22 04:37:12 2001

Red Hat Trumps Microsoft

AbbeNormal is now running PikiePikie 0.4. As soon as i mess with the templates a little, you'll have access to older weblog entries again. Thu Nov 22 00:22:39 2001

Abbe Normal Upgraded

StevePike has released Pikie 0.4! This release adds RssSyndication (0.92 and 1.0) of RecentChanges and any weblogs in the wiki. It also features the usual array of bug fixes, handles long weblogs much better, and much more. See Pikie:DevelopmentWeblog . (PikiePikie is the software that i gratefully use and abuse to do this) Tue Nov 20 20:55:27 2001

Pikie Zero Point Four

Among other things i am a skeptic. But this Mountain Times article, Scientific Proof Of Global Consciousness May Be Emerging, got my attention. Random number generators scattered around the world picked up patterns from September 11-13 (and they did before when Princess Diana died). It all sounds a little goofball, but the fact that the group running the experiment -- the Global Consciousness Project -- is at Princeton leaves me more likely to believe it (much as i try not to kowtow to traditional authorities). If you're a serious geek, you probably want to know details of how their random number generators work. Clearly these are people who like PierreTeilhardDeChardin (in fact they quote him on some pages). Tue Nov 20 13:34:07 2001

Consciousness Affecting Randomness

What i did last night: First, a thoroughly participatory and energizing Jai Uttal performance, chanting with family and a friend and about a hundred other folks. It was my first time, though i'd listened to (and chanted along idly) to his Nectar album. I had no idea that we'd done one song for forty minutes until my friend told me. Then we sat out to catch one or two early meteors. As far as the two social webloggers' parties, well, i didn't make it to Palo Alto, but the party at Min Jung Kim's and Shiu's (please correct my mangled spelling, it is a wiki after all) and whoever else lives there was fantastic, and the entertainment! I don't just mean the music, but the meteor shower as well, for which their deck and porch above (it's a big house) up in the Oakland hills was perfect. The meteors were short and sticky to long and streaky and every other combination you can imagine, sometimes coming in pairs or threes. They were still going strong when i got home, way after the projected peak time. I even asked for one more, and paid for my hubris with a sore neck and a three minute wait, but was paid off with a long bright one with a glowing finish. Back on the party, the music (two different setups) was fine, although i had to take break in a trance room for a little bit. The guy spinning upstairs, wearing a "F I R E D" shirt which he had not earned , reported when asked, that there was a little soul left at Wired. That's none at the magazine, but a little at the web site. Met several cool people, including briefly Ernie (that drawing actually looks like him), the birthday boy, who seemed to be having a good time, i'm sure he'll write about that. Min Jung seemed happy about the Gaysian scene (hey, it's a new term for me too). It was his description of last year that convinced me to check it out. Sort of. See y'all next time... Sun Nov 18 13:04:21 2001

Chanting A Party And Meteors

Tonight is supposed to be a fairly spectacular meteor shower. Of course to really see a lot, you'll have to be away from the city lights, but something will be visible everywhere. The best hours here in the San Francisco Bay Area are predicted to be after midnight, and especially from 2:00 to 2:30 am (800-3500 per hour!). A second peak will be some hours later, after it's light in North America. Thanks to Flutterby for the reminder... See the WatchingMeteors advice i stole from a SlashDot thread. Sat Nov 17 16:19:27 2001

See The Pretty Lights

"Nonviolence means being willing to die, but not kill, to achieve our aims." Yeah, i said that (in #TopFiveLiesAboutThisWar). But even that's a simplification. For example, this quote definitely has a non-violent ring to it: "Arms are instruments of ill omen. ... When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men. ... When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe mourning rites." --Lao-tzu (ca. 500 B. C.) Sat Nov 17 00:35:14 2001

Nonviolence Is Complex

Election violence continues in the ongoing parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka, with hundreds of incidents reported. The National Peace Council works through various strategies to bring an end to the war, and was founded by religious leaders from different groups coming together to stop election violence. You can read their press releases to get an idea of their perspective. I'm still going in March, and am actively seeking others to come as well. If you want to learn a practice to help you listen better and be more compassionate (even with yourself), then join me at the 10 day International Intensive Training. A little advance training in NonviolentCommunication is probably required. On a more amusing note (only because we all know it will fail), one brave citizen has brought a Supreme Court case to ban the UNP and the PA from the elections, for violating the people's fundamental rights. If you're an American, imagine someone trying to get our Supreme Court to do the same with the Democrats and Republicans. One can dream... Fri Nov 16 23:25:36 2001

Election Violence In Sri Lanka

Why even play the game of evil? (i've changed the comments at the end of this. again. --JohnAbbe) I do not want bin Laden to think Americans are evil Bush to think bin Laden is evil peace activists to think Bush is evil you to think i'm evil for saying this me to think any of you are evil if you do or, me to think i am evil if i do (Several people have asked through other media if i wrote this. Yes.) "We can debug relationships, but it's always good policy to consider the people themselves to be features. People get annoyed when you try to debug them." --Larry Wall, second State of the Onion speech If i'm having trouble staying focused on the relationships because i'm upset at some person(s), compassion is the best way i know to bring my attention back to the relationships: assume those i'm upset at had a damn good reason for what they did. I imagine what those reasons might be. This may involve imagining that the situation is different from what i understand it to be, or that their motivations may be different from what i had thought. If i'm having trouble getting myself to do it for someone else, then i pay attention to my own upset, and what my good reasons for it are, until i'm willing to do the same for them. When i get back to the relationship, it's much easier. Thu Nov 15 19:23:31 2001

Recursive Compassion Is The Cure

"As I've often told Ginsberg, you can't blame the President for the state of the country, it's always the poets' fault. You can't expect politicians to come up with a vision, they don't have it in them. Poets have to come up with the vision and they have to turn it on so it sparks and catches hold." --Ken Kesey (1935-2001) Wed Nov 14 12:59:17 2001

What Ken Kesey Said

The morning i was getting ready to go to my first 10-day sit (VipassanaMeditation), i couldn't find my glasses. I desparately looked and looked, and even made an emergency appointment at one of those about-an-hour places. Mama (Tamil for "uncle"; using relationship-names is common in South Asian cultures) helped me look, but finally asked me if i would really need them. I thought about that a little and realized that no, i wouldn't. But it didn't shake my wanting to have them. Being able to see clearly gives me some sense of security i guess. I found them in a last check before going to the eyeglasses appointment, and mama drove me to the meditation, all 'secure'. Ten days of meditation, especially with a strong focus on anicca (impermanence) will shake up anyone's security, and rightfully so. And that was great. Then at the end of the last sitting of strong determination (no moving except to straighten up, for a one hour meditation), i reached down to pick up my glasses, and without any force, the left temple simply fell off. Along with my franticness about having to have them with me in the first place, i was rather more amused than upset about it. That evening we were allowed to speak after nine days of silence, and i had a conversation about beliefs, religion and such with some of the others. One of them insisted that having faith in anything, even a mistaken faith that might support horribly destructive behavior, was in some way more spiritually advanced than being atheist or agnostic. Having been agnostic until a little more than a year ago, i lay awake that night, unwillingly contemplating this, rebelliously tempted to convert back to agnosticism. Remembering my god's work with the glasses restored my faith. Anyway, i've been looking at the world askew since then, and frequently adjusting my glasses. Two days ago i finally took them to get fixed, so i've been wearing my backup glasses, which are fine except that the right temple is broken off, so then i was looking askew the other way. Today, for various reasons, i was able to look myself in the mirror more squarely than i have been in some time. I was celebrating this, when (again with no significant force applied) the left temple broke off! Now i have no temples at all, which come to think of it, is quite appropriate for MyReligion. Sun Nov 11 22:05:07 2001

Looking Askew At The World

Open Wiki knows RSS; it publishes, and reads it. There's a Meatball page on RSS extensions for some other wikis: Meatball:RssExtensionModuleForWikis . (Besides the OriginalWiki, Meatball is perhaps the best wiki about wikis -- among other things. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, a way of publishing just your headlines and descriptions, in a way that's easy for other web sites and other software to pick up and display. It's mostly produced by weblogs and news sites; wikis are just getting into the picture. For more on RSS see RssSyndication.) The wikis using it so far publish RSS files of their RecentChanges pages. Then it's fairly straightforward to merge several wikis' recent changes lists into one view, which is exactly what Jeff Dairiki has done here, and Dave Jacoby here. Of course, i'm asking Steve if he would code PikiePikie to make it's WebLogs available through RSS: Pikie:RssFilesForWeblogs And, of course, I couldn't refuse and promptly implemented RSS for PikiePikie. From PikiePikie version 0.4 any page, or a list of pages, can be syndicated using RSS. See Pikie:BrainstormingPikieRss for the thought processes which led to my implementation and links to related pages. -- StevePike On the general note of convenient access to wikis' recent changes, Meatball's are available as a Netscape/Mozilla sidebar; see Meatball:MozillaSidebar . Wiiski is an odd-looking wiki. Built on top of TWiki, it purports to have page-specific chat (ICQ, but moving to Jabber?), but that's apparently broken, and their web statistics page indicates that usage dropped off quickly over the summer. I'm e-mailing them to see what's up... Fri Nov 9 21:15:28 2001

Wikis With Rss Or Chat

There's many kinds of hypocrisy in most governments' participation in this war on terror. Here's just one small example: the United States government has harbored and supported terrorism for decades at our own training camp, the School of the Americas (Guardian article): ...the school's training manuals...recommended blackmail, torture, execution and the arrest of witnesses' relatives. If we're serious about ending terrorism, we'll shut it down. You can take action to help! E.g., there's a bill to close it in Congress (H.R. 1810) with at least 80 co-sponsors already -- ContactYourRepresentatives. Last year they changed the name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (Whisc). Update your rolodexes. Thanks for the reference, Randy. Thu Nov 8 15:13:47 2001

Hypocrisy On Terrorism

Some days, all one can do is quote: "Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend." --Rabindranath Tagore What is the source of this quote? --ClaudineChionh? Good question. I admit i do not generally keep track of the exact source, in the rare cases when it's present when i run across a quote i like. I did searches through the quotes links in my sidebar, and posted the question to news:alt.quotations (or NewsGroup:alt.quotations ), but no luck so far. Anyone else? --JohnAbbe Wed Nov 7 11:15:04 2001

Receiving Truth

What a day! I'll be facilitating this Saturday for a Community Conversation on Racism organized by the League of Women Voters, and aiming for long-term bridge-building. That was the last meeting of the day, a preparatory meeting at which i unexpectedly ran into some old/recent friends/acquaintances, a nice surprise. Before that i met with Derek and Lina, both of IEEHA! and Tactile Pictures, they do some serious and funny web sites --including one for grant funders to hook up with recipients (didn't get that URL), the whirledbank, educational games at Global Arcade, and some great peace stickers. We explored the possibility of doing a site to cover the broadest array of institution-building and other positive news you can use (as i mentioned yesterday). Maybe something like Catalytic Communities but for all communities. Having gotten some understanding on the work stuff, Lina suggested an eating meeting next week to get to know one another better. Cooool. My notes about this project will develop on BuildingActivities for now, better than instution-building but maybe still not the right term. Suggestions welcome. Mon Nov 5 22:32:00 2001

Constructive Day

Slashdot (discussion) points to an article suggesting a meteor impact changed the course of Middle Eastern history about 4000 years go. Mon Nov 5 05:36:32 2001

Meteor May Have Changed History

Green Party official stopped from flying -- specifically because of her politics (the Green party is opposing the bombing in Afghanistan). Time to re-join the Green Party i guess. I'll check out my local Alameda Green Party meeting next Sunday. Turns out she's from a small splinter Green party, not the (relatively) well-known one. In two separate messages, people who had interacted with her were not surprised to think that she might have acted in a way that stimulated the response she got (although i'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around if one wants to go there). --JA The software code that comprises a Windows Operating System Product shall be determined by Microsoft in its sole discretion. That's the major Microsoft settlement loophole found by Brett Glass (thanks Dave). If this settlement had been in place before the case against Microsoft, they couldn't have been sued for embedding Internet Explorer in Windows, because they would have had the right to simply declare it a part of the operating system. I'll be contacting my state attorney to urge them to reject the settlement. (Here's my CommentReMsSettlementToCaDa) I respect resistance, and in the long run change also requires institution-building. I want to stay focused on that. Come to think of it, i'm meeting Monday with some folks to see about finding/creating a BuildingActivities-oriented web site. Sun Nov 4 20:28:26 2001

Green Oppression Microsoft And Institution Building

In these trying times, i think it's very important that we all pull together. That's why i'm flying the flag, in my sidebar over there to the right. Not to be an Earthist or anything, but i feel a great commonality with all the others here, and would take comfort from knowing that others do likewise. So if you're moved to do so, please join me! You can order on on-line or find a store near you at earthflag.net. In a rare response to spam (received as i was writing here), i asked the "Show your patriotism with a durable American car flag" folks who spammed me if they had a version with the Earth flag, and gave them the address. Went and got a flag for the car today. A picture may appear here... Sat Nov 3 11:42:51 2001

Fly The Flag

Tuvalu loses out to global warming -- Eleven thousand to be evacuated to New Zealand. Two more near-earth asteroids have been discovered to be companions to Earth, similar to the already-known Cruithne ("croo-EEN-ya"). All three circle the sun at the same distance as Earth, dancing in horseshoe orbits with us. Found a very extensive Crop Circle report at the less-New-Agey-than-it-looks New Heaven New Earth (by way of Tom Atlee pointing me to something else there). Through the NHNE site, i also found my way to noogenesis.com, Yen Duen Hsi's neatly-designed home site (ignore the broken links, the working ones are gold). It has great stuff about (surprise) noogenesis, and the man who coined the term, PierreTeilhardDeChardin. This is a man i wish i could meet. He died three years before i was born, with his most important writings unpublished. I wonder what he would have thought of my ConsciousnessIsOurOxygenChallenge theory. Fri Nov 2 16:48:27 2001

More Random Than Usual

There are lots of news sites about the war-weary island off the south coast of India, and i follow two regularly -- for a Tamil perspective, TamilNet, and for a Sinhalese perspective, LankaPage. Neither drips with inflammatory language, and they are both (as far as i can tell) honest. On the stories that both cover, i have found at least general agreement. But not on a recent story. Tamil Net reported (and is still reporting) that Voice of Tigers radio claims an October 30 attack on oil supply transport vessel Thukinda (Silk Pride) sank the ship. Lanka Page reported on October 31 that the ship was damaged but safely brought into port. Today the Lanka Page story is gone (nothing nefarious, it's just scrolled off their recent news and there's no link for old news). Unfortunately, GooGle apparently doesn't index it so i can't use their cached version. The BBC is reporting the ship as saved. (To be precise, the stories don't disagree; it's the Voice of Tigers radio and others whose stories disagree) Anyone have the reality, or at least more leads on this? More generally, any input on good news sites or search engines for Lanka? (And no, i don't really believe it's as simple as there being a Tamil and a Sinhalese perspective. Also see LankaLinks.) Thu Nov 1 21:08:33 2001

Lankan News Contradictions

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Subscribing

I hope to offer e-mail subscription, but it is not yet implemented in PikiePikie. If you know of an RSS-to-email service or software, please mailto:johnca@ourpla.net . (Update: there are some, i'm researching it and will post about it soon...)

Syndication:

These feeds use RssSyndication:

Recent weblog posts: (1.0) or 0.92 or Recent weblog posts plus new/changed wiki pages: 0.92 or 1.0 or RSS-to-HTML by the JavaScriptRssViewer

Sometimes i post to this RadioUserland WebLog: RSS-to-HTML by the JavaScriptRssViewer

AbbeNormalSurvey: Web or Regular RSS reader? Scroll to #Subscribing #Earlier #Search FAQ .:. GuestBook .:. SandBox Commenting: click any entry title, then click "Edit Text" at the bottom of the page; add your comment wherever seems right, and click "Save" .:. Permalinks: the title of each entry is a PermaLink. More PikieDocumentation "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." --Wes Nisker /`\\\ ( 0 0 ) --OOO---U---OOO-- Sometimes i meditate. Some of my FavoriteQuotes; ttc:17 Among other things i read off-line are WholeEarthReview, ScienceNews, ComicBooks? and ScienceFiction. Let me know WhatYouRead. Useful?: NonviolenceResources | ContactYourRepresentatives | LankaLinks (news and more) | BuildingActivities | RssSyndication | WikisWithRss | WikiWeblogs News: Lanka TamilNet | LankaPage | Central Asia News Tech TechNomad | news:comp.risks ( web) .:. For the geek-minded, imagine that link to "Central Asia News" as a link into Dave's wiki--though i don't know Frontier's data system to know how wiki it is or isn't. Humor: Improbable | Onion Comics K Chronicles Quotations: news:alt.quotations ( on GoogleGroups) | http://tqpage.com/ | old FAQ More WebLogs/WebJournals: MacinTouch | ScriptingNews | SlashDot | Plokta (SF fandom) | Singularity Jihaddict | War is Peace | makethemaccountable interested collabs | Believers | Fen | Mac | photo | quoters | poly | SFBay | world |-| BlogDex | reviews (BlogYou?) Weblog User groups: UK SF bay area France there are more... More WikiWikis: HandheldsWiki: ( recent) |-| Recent changes on other wikis | WikiForum (email list) |-| everything (wiki?) WikiWeblogs |-| Individuals ProperTreatment Weblogs with some interest in wiki Karl Anderson Ftrain istori ( wiki) Keith Devens Piefke 3000 (English & Deutsche). Other home pages of mine: http://www.ourpla.net/john/ 2d | Public bookmarks (old) CreationMatters:JohnAbbe Wiki:JohnAbbe JohnAbbe Je parle francais un peu Ennaku koonjam Tamil than theddiom (need to get the "right" transliteration...) Shameless plugs: Bay Area South Asian Artists Resource LiveMusicRules PeoplesAmendment? AdeCorporation DinerWare IcommerceSolutions? ExternalReferals are web addresses from which someone has browsed their way to this wiki. This wiki-weblog runs PikiePikie 0.4 -- a wiki written with a plugin for weblogs, and Pikie:TableSyntax , which allows for this sidebar. Thanks go to StevePike. Some of these pages are unreferenced (fix coming in 0.5?): a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | v | w | z a AbbeMuseum AliensOrTimeTravelersPleaseHelp AltaVista AncientCivilizations ArtGallery AsciiArt b BabelFish BabylonFive BayAreaWeblogUsersGroup BookDeficit ButterflyConnections c CascadingStyleSheets CentreForPerformingArts ColdFusion CommentReMsSettlementToCaDa ConsciousnessIsOurOxygenChallenge d DadaDodo DadaIsm DaypopWhack DigitalCamerasHelp e EditText EduCation EmacsWiki f FavoritePainting FeedbackForMe g GoodIsBadIsGood h HandSpring HowToBeaParticipant i InterestingConferences InternationalIntensiveTraining k KnownFalsehoods l LakeVostok LayoutTemplatesOverridden LikePages m MapLinks MiniWiki MuckingWithRss MultiTrackDiplomacy n NewMedia NooFace NvcWiki o OpMl p PageTitle PeriodicTable PikiePikieWanted PopularMythsResources PracticeMatters PublicPage r RantRemoved RecentChangesJunkies s SayingThingsYouHaventSaid SeptEleven SingleBottomLine SundayLeaderOnIit SunirShah t TableTesting TouchGraph u UnitedNations v VeriCon w WatchingMeteors WebJournalers WebJournals WikisNotInEnglish WorldSousveillanceDay z ZigZag I always thought i would keep a SideBar nice and spare. Ah, now i understand. Yaywastaken points the way forward (or is that sideways). #Search engines are at the bottom of the page. __________ /\ _______\ \ \ \____ / \ \ \/ / / \ \/ / / \ / / \/_/ __________ /\ _______\ \ \ \____ / \ \ \/ / / \ \/ / / \ / / \/_/ __________ /\ _______\ \ \ \____ / \ \ \/ / / \ \/ / / \ / / \/_/ Someone is watch- ing you. _ _ |\__/| .~ ~. /o=o'`./ .' {o__, \ { / . . ) \ `-` '-' \ } .( _( )_.' '---.~_ _ _| rp