Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft

Makkun sends me a special report on torture, published in the British paper “The economist” on January 11th. The article ascertains that the US of A has stepped up its use of torture since 9/11.

I can believe that. It is not too surprising, though it does sadden me.

Nietzsche sums up my thoughts nicely in this famous quote of his:

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehen, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And wenn you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

In honour of Shatter-Katty

“Be dignified, you noble wolf!” Thus spake Donna at Wolf Hollow as she was feeding cheese to a very undignified bunch of wolves . I had not known wolves were capable of or even inclined to bouncing 4-5 feet vertically into the air repeatedly with all fours. Now I do.

Just for seeing that, the trip was worth it.

We all got a good freezing, though. Serves me right. Grow up in Bavaria and go out into winter weather with regular shoes and just one light sweater and a jacket. Stupid. It’s been too long since I last experienced a winter rather than the “winter is cancelled this year sorry” soggy season we had the past 10 years.

I hate being short on money during a decent winter. I want to ski! Bwaaaah! Pout! Stomp! …. Ah well.

The chapter I was supposed to write finally reached “final draft” state. 4 days late, to be sure. No matter, the editor was out anyway, and I have not heard back yet from the technical editor on it. So, goodie, I’m getting somewhere with that.

Got some non-blurry bermy family pictures, too. For my German friends, and the suffering of everyone else, here is one:

Bavarian beer. More specifically, Weißbier! It is the founding stone of all civilization. So, more pictures. Me masterfully pouring one while the cookie wuff looks on. And the end product, with a head that turned out a little small. Original Franziskaner glasses, take note! Erdinger beer though. Franziskaner was out. Should be back in soon.

Eat your heart out, Makkun! They have Weihenstephaner, too! And lots more. Many I never heard of before.

Fun with tech

So here I am, awaiting the download of Enterprise 2×14 “Stigma” with trepidation. When the download finally finishes, and I start the video for my viewing pleasure, I am greeted by the familiar Enterprise theme music, settle back in my comfy “fabric manager’s chair” from OfficeMax (or was it Staples? … anyway, I digress) to enjoy another riveting episode of Enterprise … and am treated to sound, but no video.

Ack. Okay. It’s supposed to be DiVX. It says DiVX in the properties. No matter, try xvid. Hmm, no. Okay, try it on C’s computer. Hmm, also no. Alright. Delete the file. Download it again, this time from a different P2P service.

Several hours later. The download is (once again) complete. But now! Ahh …. Enterprise. Nothing like a new episode on a Saturday night to relax. Start the video and …. nothing. Blackness. With sound. Not again!

It turns out that I had DiVX 5.0.2 installed, and this video has been encoded using DiVX 5.0.3. After installing the latest, it plays fine. Thanks, DiVX developers. If you’re going to break playback, be nice and don’t do that with a .01 increase in version numbers. Better yet, have your codec warn me. “Hey, this has been encoded with a later version. If it behaves oddly, try downloading the latest and greatest”. That’d be real helpful.

The episode, I hear you ask? How is it? Terrific.

(Spoiler alert)

The episode reveals that T’Pol is suffering from a rare Vulcan disease, one that Phlox, the ship’s doctor, does not know how to treat. This disease is found only among a small group of Vulcans, whose “intimate practices” (mindmeld, should you wonder) are condemned by Vulcan society. Phlox’s attempts to gain information about the disease and thus stay its course are met with stonewalling from Vulcan physicians. Since the disease only affects a despised minority of Vulcans, the Vulcan science directorate is not very motivated to find a cure. To make matters worse, these Vulcan doctors decide to relieve T’Pol of her duty once they learn she is infected.

To make this plot yet spicier, T’Pol is actually not a member of this minority, and the mindmeld was forced on her (you may remember 1×17, Fusion). She, however, has moral fibre in abundance, and refuses to reveal that she was, essentially, raped; arguing that if she uses that as her defense, she would condone the discrimination of this Vulcan minority.

Allright, so now I spoiled most of the episode for you; but to not do so completely, I won’t mention some of the plot twists, nor how this conundrum is resolved. The episode also has some much needed comic relief through the visit of Phlox’s wife, who promptly starts hitting on the chief engineer. Which leads to some very amusing scenes of Tripp stammering and stuttering and uttering assurances that he has been “nuthin’ but a complete gentleman”.

This is what I love Star Trek for. Time and again, it delivers insightful social commentary about current issues by packing them into a sci-fi story (anyone remember the TNG episodes in which the question “is Data property or does he have rights?” is raised and finally answered?). Speak about AIDS, and the first reaction is to shut down. There’s only so much one can take in on any one given subject. But talk about “Pa’nar Syndrome”, and you have the viewer’s attention, and a fresh, unspent viewpoint on the issue.

As the good doctor would say: Remarkable.

10

Another 80GB Maxtor drive went bad in my system. Maxtor replaced it, and now I have a 160GB drive. Nifty!

Alas, my drive imaging software is less than functional, so I am currently unable to copy my primary drive over easily. Ah well. I’ll get it sorted. Of course, now I’m kinda hoping my primary drive will go bust, so I can get another 160GB free and RAID-1 the two. I am emphatically not going to lose all my data one more time.
Christopher maintains that using a 160GB drive simply to mirror another one is blasphemy. I think the thought of wasting that much space actually physically pains him.

Regarding the chapter I am supposed to be writing, I didn’t do any writing at all the last 3 weeks. 1 week got lost due to the flu, and the other two I was quite simply too busy with a big client rollout we had.
Which means I’ll have to haul ass this weekend. Final draft is due in a week. I’d rather have the chapter “as good as ready” by Monday and have some time for corrections than drag this out to the last minute.

Said client rollout was fun though. The QA was an immense amount of work, and more to come in refining said QA documents. However, the end results are worth the effort. It’s been the biggest project we’ve had so far, and the cleanest. Our stuff works, and that’s more than can be said for some other big projects we’ve implemented in the past.

My landlord promises to do the minor repairs I have asked for in two weeks time. Given that he’s been promising for well over a year now, and stuff just keeps piling up, I do hope he’ll keep his promise this time. They may be minor, but by now it’s a sizable list.

In other news, I have assessed the amount of debt I carry. Ouch. Stupid mistakes do add up over the years. The good news is that I have reached settlements with all debtors and should be out of debt in no more than 2.5 years. Hopefully sooner.

On a lighter note, watch your desktop icons go to war; and find a use for those AOL CDs. Crazy stuff. Don’t try this at home .

I’ve also finally managed to download all episodes of Enterprise to date. Well, 2×14 is still loading, but otherwise all of them. Neat. Keep yer shirt on, lutenant!