House of Eratosthenes

Once again, reality has dealt liberal thought one of the harshest of blows; and liberal thought saves some face by conjuring up a translucent image, partially based on fact but partially photoshopped, of an angry, slobbering, vitriolic, emotionally unsettled hardcore “right wing” taking pleasure and pain from all the wrong things. In this case, people like me are taking “glee” in President Obama’s defeat in trying to bring the Olympic games to the City of Chicago.

The plaintive cry wails forth once again: What is wrong with us?

Let me put it in terms so simple it’ll be impossible to misunderstand, sparky.

What I am feeling is not “glee.” What I am feeling is roughly analogous to the parent who, after years of watching his child leap out into the street while obviously not looking at what’s comin’, discovers the child was finally hit by a car. But harmlessly. Had the absolute freakin’ bejeezus scared out of him. Piping hot tears running down his face and dripping down his chin.

Nothing amiss except a few token scrapes on the knees and hands where he landed. No broken bones. No bruises at all. And, unfortunately, an absolutely mortified driver who’ll never forget the lesson either…but perhaps that is a lesson well-learned too.

Watching people vote for Barack Obama is exactly the same feeling as watching one’s own child graduate past the age where he should’ve learned to watch for cars, and realizing the lesson won’t come until some impressive disaster takes place. This is the feeling I had a year ago that you didn’t have, chuckles. It is a sickening, ominous, foreboding, nauseating feeling. It is a feeling of “some massive failure is inevitable, what it is I do not know.”

I’ve gone through both those experiences. The feeling is almost exactly the same in both cases.

Well, the disaster has taken place. As I pointed out at Rick’s place, quoting three smart men:

“Those who value security over liberty, deserve neither.” — Ben Franklin

“Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

“Those who sacrifice everything for popularity, end up with nothing.” — Morgan K. Freeberg

This was as inconsequential a decision as a decision can possibly get. Thank God. Yeah that’s my feeling: Gratitude to the cosmic kismet that decides such things. Your inevitable lesson was a cheap one.

Look to your momma to kiss your little scratches, and hug you and make you feel better.

This daddy is taking the classic daddy approach: Did you learn anything? Did you learn that when you sacrifice everything for popularity you end up with nothing? If so, then I have reason to feel this gratitude. If not, then all that happened was an illustration…not a redemption. I am hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

Because you, like the child — let us face it, shall we? — ignored lots of warnings about looking both ways before crossing the street. Lots. Years and years of ’em. You may not be altogether stupid, but it’s been proven to me whether I’m receptive to it or not, that you can be impressively dense. So first things first. Tell me what you learned. I have a great deal more curiosity about this next piece, than a truly “gleeful” man would.

Shouldn’t that be “Memo for File IC”? Or does it not work that way? (I honestly don’t know the rules – I just remember that if there’s a smaller letter in front of the bigger one, you subtract it.)

Not commenting about the content, but focusing on a meaningless side detail – how liberal of me!
- Daniel | 10/07/2009 @ 07:22
I think it depends on the size of the tablet being chiseled. We used XLIX for 49, not IL; I recall the movie copyrights were MCML something something something, which would imply this went to MIM in 1999 and not MCMLXXXXIX…but that longer version somehow looks more authoritative, at least to me.

What if I wrote an algorithm to compute it? I think a “no leapfrog more than 2” rule would apply. The I can decrement the V and the X, but not the L or the C; the X can decrement the L and the C but not the D or the M. But I can’t cite anything for that, it’s just what makes sense to me.

It’s really all about that thing done by WordPress/Blogger. You know where you give two posts the same title, so when it builds the slug it fastens this “-2” on the back of it? I don’t like that. Never did like it. I’d much rather have it come back and tell me “Indexing/validation/integrity error, you cannot give it that title because you’ve already used it.” Perhaps you can use your geeky awesomeness to clue a fellow techie guy in on how to work that in.
- mkfreeberg | 10/07/2009 @ 07:34
Well, it would appear I’m all wet. 🙂 According to Wikipedia (not the best source, but fine for this), under the “Symbols” heading, it specifically states that 49 is written with a combination of 40 (XL) and 9 (IX), not as IL. As far as the algorithm goes, that paragraph described breaking an Arabic number into its parts, and converting each on its own. So, you’ve got the right numbers on this, as it’s 90 (XC) and 9 (IX).

AFAIK, your way is about the best way if you’re wanting them numbered (which seems to be your style). 🙂 My wife uses WordPress for online proofs when she does photography – I name the post something like “Freeberg Family – 10/7/2009”, but I’ll manually change the slug from “freeberg-family-1072009” (the one it makes) to “freeberg-family-20091007”. If you were sure you weren’t going to do two in the same day, that might work too – version 2.8.4 gives you an easy way to change the slug right below the title.

Regarding the indexing, though, you can request it as an option. It could go on the settings page where you define the permalinks, and be called “Alert on permalink duplication” – or maybe even a dropdown labeled “Duplicate Permalinks” with the values “Automatically Fix” or “Alert”. I’ve submitted 1 ticket on WordPress for a feature enhancement, and it actually was accepted.

Personally, though, I like the CMXLIV stuff – I’ve actually adopted it over on my blog. 🙂
- Daniel | 10/07/2009 @ 21:09

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Memo For File XCIXMonday, October 5th, 2009

Memo For File XCIX
Monday, October 5th, 2009