Vitanuova for 2001 April 2

Hale-Bopp

Just over four years ago, Alan Hale said:

How many more of these types of reports are we going to have to listen to before we finally decide that we are going to use the candle of science, and the reasoning skills that we have, to take back the darkness from the ignorance and superstition that is enveloping us?

I hate to sound like I'm saying "I told you so," but I'd like to read the last paragraph of the explanation I posted to the Web after this business of the Saturn-like object broke out last fall. I remind you that this is dated November 16, 1996. After explaining that the "object" was nothing more than a bright star, I wrote: "There are many `fringe' people who are trying to attach apocalyptic significance to Comet Hale-Bopp, and incidents like this one . . . are sure to increase as we get closer to the comet's perihelion. I ask readers to treat all these irresponsible reports with the disdain they deserve, and instead enjoy the beauty of the comet for its own sake."

I really meant that last sentence. What I want everyone to do -- and I mean everyone who is here today, and everyone who is seeing my image and listening to my voice -- is, tonight, to drop what you're doing, forget about the world for a minute, go outside, look up in the northwest, and take a look at this comet. It's a beautiful object. It's lovely. It's one of the most magnificent celestial objects you will ever see. But for all its beauty, its magnificence, its splendor, all it is is a dirty snowball that's orbiting the sun. Nothing more. It has no influence on Earthly events. It has no power to affect anything that happens here on Earth. It has no power, but we do. We have the power to build a world for the 3rd Millennium that is free of the ignorance and superstition that is so rampant in our society today. We have that power. What I'd like you to do when you're looking at the comet tonight is to think of some ways to make that happen. I'd like to hear what you come up with.

I'm sure Dr. Hale would still appreciate your comments.

Ramen worm

My machine pie was broken into by the Ramen worm, which is the first time an automated computer program has ever compromised my system. Alas, I hadn't applied the BIND update I was supposed to, because the Debian dist-upgrade didn't work for me and I got lazy about patching it by hand. So no human had the patience to discover my negligence, but a computer program did.

I think in the future some worms will be much nastier and more virulent. I think we'll see viruses and worms as the pre-eminent source of security threats. I mean, if a machine can beat the world chess champion, surely machines will be better than people ultimately at breaking into other machines. (There will be cases where judgment and background knowledge is important, but many attacks can be automated.)

By the way, I was literally months behind in applying the security patches in question. I saw them the day they came out, and I didn't do anything. So mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I'm moving everything over to this machine homer, which Trey runs in Berkeley. I'm just waiting for some things to go through with Network Solutions. They tend to do an incredibly bad job with a lot of things they used to do well, so that it's become boring to complain about them.

robotfindskitten

I'm contributing a list of "non-kitten items" to the robotfindskitten project.