This gopher hole collects information, ideas, programs, opinions that I discover or generate when not occupied by more important matters in life. Its intended to serve as a multi-dimensional bookmark for relocating my mind after dealing with the latest home or job crisis, and as a place to surround myself with artifacts of fascination and comfort.

"... Convincing Americans that droppng the A-bombs on Japan wasn't necessary is no simple task."

The a-bombs were unnecessary. No reasons provided. No possibility of contradiction acknowledged.

With one sentence in a Mainichi Daily News opinion piece Tomoko Oji crystalizes the perception gap between Japan and the US over the atomic bombing of Hroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

To many Japanese, their national victimhood in the atomic bombings is a moral absolute that trumps all context.

However, one cannot form a true moral judgement without an understanding of the context in which the decision to use the a-bombs was made:

• The war had been initiated by Japanese aggression.

• Japanese atrocities against war prisoners and conquered peoples.

• The need to dissuade the Soviet Union from making further inroads

on Japanese territory.

• Japanese falure to respond to the Allies' Pottsdam Accords.

• The terrible death toll of the conquest of Okinawa due to Japanese

propaganda-inspired suicidal resistance by civilians.

• The projection that the conquest of the Japanese home islands would

be even bloodier, costing many times more American and Japanese lives than Okinawa, and more than the lives lost in the atomic bombings.

I am convinced that the use of the atomic bombs was a great human tragedy, but the lesser of evils necessary to bring a swift end to the even greater tragedy of the war.

@ONLINE{Oji:2010:Online,
  author	= "Tomoko {Oji}",
  title		= "No remorse in U.S. for A-bomb attack on Japan, but
  push to abolish weapons growing",
  booktitle	= "The Mainichi Daily News",
  year		= 2010,
  month		= August,
  url		=
  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20100819p2a00m0na004000c.html,
  note	        = "accessed 2010/8/20"
} 

Welcome

This entry is a guide to the markup notation built into the blox plugin, v0.98. To best display this page, the blox configurable variables $break_singles and $styles_active should both be set to 1. If everything is set well, the next sentence will be on its own line. This should be a separate line, and these six words should be bold.

Overview

The blox plugin has some very simple styling shortcuts built in, as part of its job to make your entry-typing easier. The shortcuts are based on Brian Ingerson's Kwiki module (the "official" blosxom wiki), with modifications to be a touch more versatile and to allow existing html markup. The notation appears to be very robust -- this whole page is formatted without a single html tag (barring 4 examples of "real" tags), and the markup doesn't break or bog down.

The following text explains and illustrates using this simple markup in your entry files. Comments about markup success or failure appear to the right of examples, indicated by "<--". Examples of "what to type" are presented in comments as code. The last line(s) in each section demontrate how to escape (negate) the markup.

Heads

Put 1 to 6 "=" at start of line, then a space, then head text and end-of-line. Optionally, put a space and matching number of "=" after head text. Escape by preceding with "!". 1)

Here's an H1

Here's an H2

Here's an H3

Here's an H4

Here's an H5

Here's an H6

1a) Trailing "=" must balance leading "=", or they won't be removed === Wups ====

Wups

1. The next line is styled; type it like this: == /Styled H2/

   Styled H2

2. The next line fails; there is no space between "=" and the head text
   ==Not an H2
3. The next line fails; too many spaces between "=" and the head text: == Not an H2
   == Not an H2
4. The next line fails; "=" must be first character on line:
   This is == not an H2
5. The next line puts equals signs in heads; type it like this (note the trailing space): "==== == Equals Signs in Heads == " (no quotes)

   == Equals Signs in Heads ==

6. The next two lines demonstrate escaping headline markup:
   === Negation <-- escaping; type it like this: !=== Negation
   ==== Negation ==== <-- escaping; type it like this: !=== Negation ===

---

Rules

Four "-" at start of line; nothing else on the line. Escape by preceding with "!".

1. The next line fails due a space after "---- ":
   ----
2. The next line is an escape; type it like this: ----
   ----
3. The next line is a rule, which breaks the rule about escape examples being the last line, and ends this section ;-)

---

Bold (actually, <strong>)

Enclose single-line words with "*". Escape by preceding with "!".

1. This is a test of bold. <-- one word...
2. This is a 6-word test of bold. <-- ...or several: *a 6-word test of bold*
3. This is a t*est of bo*ld. <-- fails; words not enclosed: a t*est of bo*ld
4. This is a* test of* bold. <-- fails; words not enclosed: a* test of* bold
5. "bold within plain double quotes" <-- "*bold within plain double quotes*"
6. This is a *test* of UNbolding. <-- escaping; type it like this: !*test*

---

Italic (actually, <em>)

Enclose single-line words with "/". Escape by preceding with "!".

1. This is a test of italic.
2. This is a test of italic. <-- This /is a test of/ italic.
3. This /is a test o/f italic. <-- fails; words not enclosed: /is a test o/f
4. 'Italic within single quotes' <-- '!/Italic within single quotes/'
5. This is a /test/ of UNitalicizing. <-- escaping; type it like this: !/test/

---

Bold-Italic ...

1. This is a test of bold-italic. <-- */test/*
2. This is a test of bold-italic. <-- */This is a test/*
3. This is a test of bold-italic. <-- *This /is a test/*
4. This is a test of bold-italic. <-- this works: *This /is a test*/
5. This is a test of bold-italic. <-- this works, too: *This /is a test* of/
6. Th*is i/s a test/* of bold-italic. <-- fails; words not enclosed: Th*is i/s a test/*
7. This i*s a test* of bold-italic. <-- fails poorly; words not enclosed: i*/s a test/*
8. *Escaping /bold-italic*/. <-- escaping; type it like this: !*Escaping !/bold-italic*!/

(The final "!" is just to be safe against further "/" in the line ;-)

---

...and Italic-Bold

1. This is a test of italic-bold. <-- /*test*/
2. This is a test of italic-bold. <-- [/*This is a test*/
3. This is a test of italic-bold. <-- /This *is a test of*/
4. This is a test of italic-bold. <-- this works: /This *is a test of/*
5. This is a test of italic-bold. <-- this works, too: /This *is a test/ of*
6. Th/is i*s a test*/ of italic-bold. <-- fails; words not enclosed: Th/is i*s a test*/
7. This i/s a test/ of italic-bold. <-- fails poorly; words not enclosed: i/*s a test*/
8. /Escaping *italic-bold/*. <-- escaping; type it like this: !/Escaping !*italic-bold/!*

(The final "!" is just to be safe against further "*" in the line ;-)

---

Underline

Enclose single-line words with "_". Escape by preceding with "!". When combined with other styles, underline must be the innermost markup.

1. This is a test of underline.
2. This is a test of underline.
3. This is a test of _under_line. <-- fails; words not enclosed: _under_line
4. This is a bold slant on underline. <-- *_bold /slant/ on underline_*
   5a) For compound styles, underline must be innermost <-- */_underline must be innermost_/*
   5b) Fails; underline must be innermost <-- *_/underline must be innermost/_*
   5c) Once more; Underline-bold fails, but bold-underline works <-- _*Underline-bold*_ fails, but *_bold-underline_* works
5. This is a _test_ of UN_under_lining. <-- escaping; type it like this: !_test_
6. */_Escaping/ compound* styles_ <-- type it like this: !*!/!_Escaping/ compound* styles_

   ---

Code

Enclose any text with "[=" and "]"; multi-line works, so make sure you close it! Escape by preceding with "!". (there's just about no way coding can fail.)

1. This is a test of coding. <-- [=test of coding]
2. This is a test of coding. <-- [=This is a test of coding]
3. This is a test of coding. <-- a te[=st of coding]
4. This is a multi-line test of coding:
This is line 2...

This is line 4, the final line. <-- if you forget this close, get ready for lots of unwanted code!

1. Th[=is is a t]est [=of UNco]ding. <-- escaping; type it like this: Th![=is is a t]est ![=of UNco]ding.

---

"Raw" URL Linking

Enclose single-line URLs with "[" and "]"; URLs must begin with "http://" or "ftp://" or "irc://". Escape by preceding with "!".

1. A test of raw linking: http://www.example.com. <-- [http://www.example.com]
2. A raw ftp link: ftp://ftp.example.net. <-- [ftp://ftp.example.net]
3. A raw link: [ http://example.com]. <-- fails; space between [ and http:// [ http://example.com]
4. Style within a link http://www.example.com. <-- cute, but goes nowhere: [http://www.*example*.com]
   5a) Bold link http://www.example.com. <-- works with "*" enclosing link: *[http://www.example.com]*
   5b) Italic link http://www.example.com. <-- works with "/" enclosing link: /[http://www.example.com]/
   5c) Underline link http://www.example.com. <-- works with "_" enclosing link: _[http://www.example.com]_
5. This is a test of UNlinking [http://www.example.com]. <-- type it like this: ![http://www.example.com]
6. UNlinking styled links *[http://example.org/styled_links]*. <-- !*![http://example.org/styled_links]!*

(The final "!" is just to be safe against further "*" in the line ;-)

---

"Named" URL Linking

Enclose single-line link name, a space, and complete URL with [ and ]. Escape by preceding with "!".

1. A test of named linking. <-- [named linking http://www.example.com]
   1a) A [9-named w~h%a//c[k]y link http://www.example.com].
2. A named ftp link.
3. A na[med link http://www.example.com]. <-- fails; words not enclosed: na[med link http://www.example.com
4. A named[ link http://www.example.com]. <-- fails; space between [ and name: [ named http://example.com]
   5a) A styled named link. <-- markup enclosing name works OK: [*named link* http://www.example.com]. Style tags are enclosed by the <a>_</a> tags: <a href="http://www.example.com"><strong>named link</strong></a>
   5b) A styled named link. <-- markup surrounding [ and ] works OK: /[named link http://www.example.com]/. Style tags are enclosed by the <a>_</a> tags: <em<<a href="http://www.example.com"<named link</a<</em<
5. This is a test of [named UNlinking http://www.example.com]. <-- ![named UNlinking http://www.example.com]
6. UNlinking styled [*named links* http://example.org]. <-- ![!*named links* http://example.org]

---

URL sanity-check

These "normal" links (i.e. <a href="http://example.com">link</a>) should not be altered by blox formatting:

1. link 1
2. link 2
3. link 3

---

Not "Bugs" -- anomalies ;-)

This markup always does what it should; it's just not very bright.

1. Path-like text may be mistaken for italic:
   Library/WebServer/Documents<-- looks like one word: /Library/WebServer/Documents/
   The fix is to escape such sequences: !/Library/WebServer/Documents/
   1a) Note that this path-like text is OK, as it looks like improper markup:
   /Library/WebServer/Documents <-- /Library/WebServer/Documents
   1b) This anomaly will not bother you in properly marked raw or named links.

1. As illustrated in Raw URL Linking 4), there's nothing preventing you from styling elements within an address, even though such links won't go anywhere.

1. To prevent styling within words (which would cause big headaches for me to code ;-), an underscore character cannot preceed a bold or italic style. Thus, as illustrated in Underline 5), whenever you want to combine bold and/or italic with underlining, the underline markup must be innermost.

1. There is nothing in blox to prevent you from doing silly things, such as bolding some text that's already been bolded by html tags (oops? <-- see browser's source view). You're even free to break your html by doing something like this: <PR[=woops]E> Failed PRE block</PRE>

1. While it's not silly, it bears repeating -- if you want to document html tags in a <PRE> block, the arrows need to be typed in as "entities": "<" typed in as <, and ">" typed in as >. You can't use markup to style text within a <PRE> block.

Of course, if you do find a bug in this markup system, let me know by writing to the blosxom list, or by posting at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blosxom/messages/.

---

Can't do/To do...

The blox markup notation does not do lists or tables; lists may be coming, tables won't be. There are no plans for mailto: addresses. You can't do anchors, but they may be coming. I'm not sure if styling will be "ignorable" thru the noblox file... maybe via any of the several config plugins. You can't style your entry's title with blox; not sure if that will be added.... You can't style text within <PRE> blocks; no plans to do so.

---

Roll Your Own...

If <em> and <strong> aren't your cup of tea, change 'em! There are two instances of "em>" (p'bly change to "i>"), and two instances of "strong>" (p'bly change to "b>") in the script. To use a config plugin to turn styling on/off, look for my $styles_active = in the Configuration Section, and change the whole line to $styles_active = 0 unless defined $styles_active;.

---

Hope You Enjoy!

I hope I havent crossed the line between simplicity and convenience by adding this simple markup system to blox; if you don't like it, turn it off by setting the $styles_active configurable variable to 0 (zero). Love it, hate it...let me know. Thanx, and enjoy!

• S2
  blox v0.97 2004.07.22

NAME Blosxom Plug-in: blox

SYNOPSIS * Wraps user-specified markup tags around "paragraphs" in plain text entry files; optionally adds pre-selected linebreak tags to single lines.

* Optional markup notation creates html tags for heads, rules, blockquotes, lists, anchors, links, images, and bold, italic, underline, and monospace text styles.

* Doesn't interfere with existing markup, including <PRE> tags

* Gets out of the way of other formatting plugins (via meta).

* Config file or hard-wired story comments allow blox to ignore directories and files; un-ignore allows great specificity.

* Reads files from any text processor, recognizing Unix, Mac, and Windows line ends.

INSTALLATION Locate the blox plugin you downloaded; it may be in a ZIPped archive. Open the "blox" file and answer the questions in CONFIGURATION SECTION. Upload or drop the "blox" file into your blosxom plugins folder. Blog on.

CONFIGURATION With any luck, the instructions in the "Configuration Section" at the top of this file are sufficient; if more information is needed, see the documentation at: http://www.enilnomi.net/dltext/blox.dl

USAGE NOTES You're always free to use html markup in your entries; blox won't change any of your existing tags. However, in cases where you have a tag at the start or end of a paragraph (such as "<b>" or "</a>"), you must add a single space before or after the tag to get blox to add its open or close block tag.

For example, the following entry text (everything between the double quotes) will produce a paragraph: " <b>Do you see</b> the leading space on this line?

" while this entry text won't: " <b>What's missing</b> is a leading space on this line.

"

(You don't need to add spaces to your text in anticipation of html tags that blox markup notation might add -- leading or trailing spaces are only needed for actual tags at the start or end of "paragraphs.")

SIMPLE MARKUP A simple markup notation for generating html tags is available by setting $markup_active to 1. Notation rules are: = Headline 1-6 1 to 6 "=" and a space, then head text, alone on a line. Optionally put a space and matching number of "=" after head text.

{= Blockquote =} Start a line with "{=" to open a blockquote; end a line with "=}" to close it. Blockquotes can span paragraphs, so make sure you close them! All markup except for blockquotes can be used inside a blockquote. If you need to use "=}" within a blockquote, escape it as =}.

* Unordered list item 1 Ordered list item Lines beginning with "list marks" and a space, followed by text, become list items; the number of list marks determines the nested level of the list. Consecutive list items are contained in the same list. List items can be mulit-line, provided no line starts with a space. List end on a blank line or a line beginning with a space. List marks -- Unordered: *, +, and - Ordered: digits; can optionally be followed by :, ), >, +, or -

---- four dashes alone on a line becomes <hr>

bold words stars enclose single-line words

italic words slashes enclose single-line words

underlined words underscores enclose single-line words

monospaced words can be anywhere; can span lines

[img relative_url attributes] [ and ] enclose single-line "img" and a space, followed by a relative (to root) url, followed by a space and optional attributes.

[link text URL attributes] [ and ] enclose single-line link information. Link text (and a space) is optional; URL is required, and can be marked as being a complete address (http://), a relative-to-root address (//), or a relative-to- blog address (:/); (a space and) attributes are optional. Image markup can be used as link text.

[#anchor_name] [ and ] enclose # and singe-word same-page anchor

link text [ and ] enclose single-line link text, ##, and singe-word same-page anchor name. Image markup can be used as link text.

reference[1] links [1 URL attributes] [ and ] enclose digit(s) or single letter to form a reference. Then, alone on a line, [ and ] enclose the reference character(s) and a space, and a complete url; (a space and) attributes are optional.

Escaping Markup ! preceding exclamation point escapes ("ignores") markup.

The file "blox markup guide.txt" (included in the archive version of blox and available online at www.enilnomi.net/downloads/blox_markup_guide.txt) is a complete guide to blox markup notation. Set $markup_active and $break_singles to 1 in blox, and drop the file into your datadir to read complete markup documentation.

IGNORING FILES There are three ways to tell blox to skip over (ignore) an entry file: 1) The html comment "<!--noblox-->" (no quotes) at the start of any line in the story will tell blox to skip that file. (Similarly, ignore markup for a file by using "<!--nobloxmarkup-->".)

2) To ignore a file via the meta plugin, use any value other than "blox" for the variable $meta-markup -- $meta-markup:textile2; $meta-markup:none; $meta-markup:noblox will all ignore a file. ($meta-markup:blox will NOT ignore a file.)

3) Use a "noblox" file to ignore indivdual files and/or entire directories: create a text file named "noblox" (no quotes) in Blosxom's plugins state directory, and enter the paths to files or directories that blox should ignore.

Valid paths in the noblox file are formatted lines: * all paths start from where the Blosxom datadir leaves off * no path begins with a slash (/) * all directory paths end with a slash (/)

For example, if your $blosxom::datadir is: /var/www/html/example.net/blosxom and you want blox to ignore the story: www/example.net/blosxom/tech/projects/time_machine.txt then your "noblox" entry for the file would look like this: tech/projects/time_machine.txt

To have blox skip the whole /projects folder: tech/projects/

To have blox skip the whole somewhere.net/blosxom/tech folder: tech/

Lines in the noblox file can themeslves be ignored by adding a leading "#" (no quotes); i.e. making them Perl comments.

UN-IGNORING FILES Files or directories within ignored paths can be "un-ignored" by preceding their paths with a "!" (no quotes) in the noblox file.

For example, let's say that everything in the /tech directory could be ignored, except for the files in /tech/projects directory. Your noblox entries would look like this: tech/ !tech/projects/ So, entry files in /tech/programming or /tech/news will be ignored, but the files in the /tech/projects will be handled by blox.

NOTE: a noblox comment within an entry file always "trumps" an unignore path in the noblox file.

PREFORMATTED TEXT As of version 0.98 blox properly renders preformatted text blocks (text within <PRE> tags); previous versions required most users to make blox ignore files that contained PRE tags. Now, nearly no one should have to ignore such files.

LINE ENDS The blox plugin reads line ends from Unix (ascii 10), Mac (ascii 13), and Windows (ascii 10/13) with equal grace; use any text processor you like to edit story files and noblox files.

BUGS Address bug reports and comments to the Blosxom mailing list: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/blosxom

VERSION 2004-10-30 (v0.99) - blox with markup; based on 2004-09-24 (0.97-11e) 2004-10-30 (v0.98) - blox with no markup; based on 2004-09-24 (0.97-11e) 2004-10-24 (v0.97e) - non-release WIP for markup, bugs, cleanup (0.97-11e) 2004-09-22 (v0.97d) - named character classes dropped for perl <=5.006; several settings are config'able; cleanup 2004-08-24 (v0.97a) - normal tagged links were being mangled; fixed 2004-07-22 (v0.97) - cleanup; add un-ignore, linebreaking, styles, graceful PREs; convert line-ends in noblox file 2003-09-14 (v0.96) - better line-end conversion 2003-09-09 (v0.95) - LOL! put Win line-end chars in correct order ;-) 2003-08-31 (v0.94) - add Mac and Windows line-ending conversion 2003-08-30 (v0.93) - wip 2003-08-04 (v0.92) - add mechanisms to ignore specified entries 2003-07-31 (v0.9) - half-fast workaround for <PRE> tags 2003-07-20 (v0.8) - it's alive

LICENSE this Blosxom Plug-in Copyright 2003-2004, Stu MacKenzie (S2_Mac, HyperSTUff)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Slavery in the United States is the moral issue that inspired the animosity that eventually led to the American Civil War. What were alternatives for resolving the issue of slavery?

• (*)Controversy leads to secession attempt and military conflict between pro- and anti-slavery parties. Slaves are freed in connection with pro-slavery party's defeat. (actual history)

• Political compromise maintains status quo between pro- and anti-slavery parties. INDEFINITELY?

• Secession is attempted and fails, but status quo on slavery is maintained. Again, INDEFINITELY?

• Slaves freed (later) without armed conflict. British model (BUT British empire in 1800's (after loss of Am. colonies) was in geopolitical of being less economically dependent on slavery than its rival France (Sainte Dominique)). Brazil model (BUT Brazil had less racism, more intermarriage, and negative example of Am. Civil War to inspire peaceful abolition).

• Slaves freed through slave rebellion. John Brown model. BUT Haiti is only example of modern successful slave rebellion. Even if Haiti is considered a model worthy of emulation, social conditions (racism (more in Am.), intermarriage (more in Haiti), absentee landlords (more in Haiti), geographc isolation (Hait)) would make more difficult in Am.

• Pro-slavery region secession succeeds, but eventually abandons slavery voluntarily. BUT was slavery really on the way out? Although the number of slave-owning families was decreasing, the slave populaton increased up to the Civil War in spite of the international slave trade ban, with slave population centers shifting from Upper to Deep South through internal trade as ag. patterns shifted. RE Lee and like-minded Virginians might have started a southern abolition movement, but slave owners would have still had a lot of econ. and political clout. Even if the South industrialized, was there anything that would have prevented slaves being exploited in industry?

• Pro-slavery region secession succeeds, slaves freed through later slave rebellion. Same problems as John Brown model above.

Successful secession would probably have weakened the trend toward federalization in both the South and North.

Secession would also generate a reunification movement in view of shared revolutionary history and constitutional political culture, esp. if/when slavery is abolished in South.

A collection of questions from previous AP exams includes some formulae with a symbol unfamiliar to me. For example:

D <equals-sign-with-dots-to-upper-left-and-lower-right> 2 log10 B

Google found only a single reference to <equals-sign-with-dots-to-upper-left-and-lower-right> in an online bulletin board comment indicating it means "approximately or equal".

(Japanese fonts actually have a character for <equals-sign-with-dots-to-upper-left-and-lower-right>.)

Anyone know anything about this sign?

David Meyer can be contacted by e-mail at:

papa AT freeshell DOT org

2010/8/17

Playing with the Plan 9 operating system (or Inferno, Plan 9's virtual machine-based offspring) has been a long-time low priority project for me that I had high hopes of finally moving forward when I adopted my father-in-law's old PC (rechristened 'jii').

However, experiments with several distributions showed the old Fujitsu desktop machine seemed finicky about the operating systems it would run. Plan 9 itself froze in the middle of booting from the live CD. On those OS's I could get to 'take' on the PC (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Ubuntu Server (MS Windows would presumably also run again if I wanted to bother with it, though I don't want to play with Plan 9/Inferno THAT badly)), I couldn't get any more of Inferno running than the rc command line.

I'd almost given up and settled on running Ubuntu Server on jii, but decided there wasn't enough fun in having Ubuntu on both my PCs and yesterday decided to give Plan 9 one more chance. Surfing the Internet, I discovered the magic words for starting the live CD (and installer) with a generic video driver. This did the trick, so now I have jii humming along as a Plan 9 box.

The IT industry in Japan puts a lot of stock in certifications awarded based on a series of national Information Processing Engineer examinations. However, I've avoided the exams for my 20 years in Japan because having the cert or not has never had any practical impact on my work, I lack confidence in my ability to write the timed essays in Japanese required by the highest level exams, and I've always felt that software engineering was a calling too high to be adequately measured by a mere exam.

However, long meditation on what I've done with my career (marked-time for twenty years) and a transfer to my company's audit department have caused me to reevaluate my views and I've decided to give the mid-level Applied Information Technology Engineer exam (AP) a try this October.

I haven't really changed my mind about the ability of an exam to measure the quality of a software professional, and I still think the more interesting/valuable high-level exams are beyond the reach of my Japanese writing ability, but I feel like giving it a try just to prove to myself that I've still got a right to think of myself as a software professional and not just a generic corporate drone, and to have an objective mark of what my twenty year career has meant.

I apologize to all Planet SDF users who have been alarmed to find blog aggregator suddenly become All Papa All The Time.

I've replaced my DokuWiki-based MOTD blog with a new Blosxom-based system. I'll fill you in on the details some other time, but my request to chr to update my feed link on Planet SDF has resulted in the latest Planet update containing nothing but a history of my new blog.

This is hopefully a one-time anomaly, and we will return to your regular Planet SDF flow on the next update.

"Humanity is always grand, as man is in the image of God: with an imaginative and inductive intellect capable of contemplating the existence of love and loving its source. The human race is fallen, but it can be saved from an eternal loss of its original grandeur. In defiance of every heresy against that grandeur, whether Gnosticism or Calvinism or atheism, the Church says, 'Become what you are.'"

• Fr. George W. Rutler

@ONLINE{rutler+lopez, author = "Fr. George W. {Rutler} (interviewee) and Kathryn Jean {Lopez} (interviewer)", title = "Priest Walks among the Dead", booktitle = "National Review Online", year = 2010, month = August, url = http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/243672/priest-walks-among-dead-interview, note = "accessed August 15, 2010" }

... appears not to exist.

VAXLisp was a product for VAX/VMS, and DEC appears to have lent support to the CL development effort, but never had a CL product for either VAX or Alpha.

The GNU Common Lisp project has had an open task to port to Alpha OpenVMS since 2001, but no acton has ever been logged. ( accessed 29 July 2010)

Poplog ( accessed 29 July 2010) includes incremental compilers for CL (CL -> Pop-11) and other languages, and is supposed to work on VMS.

Otherwise, I can find no information on Common Lisp native ports for OpenVMS Alpha.

If not Common Lisp, maybe Scheme.

* Aubrey Jaffer. The SCM Implementation of Scheme. 30 June 2010. accessed 29 July 2010.

"Scm ... runs under ... VMS ...." Also mentions SLIB.