Fridaying...

I didn't get a good night's sleep at all, and got up too late to go to the ham breakfast (assuming, of course, that there was such an animal, as it tends to disappear around the holidays, but I digress...).

An interesting article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal quotes the developer of the MRI as saying that the history of science of the past 50 years could be written using papers that were rejected as "bad science" over that period. The article in which the remark was made has to do with one researcher's hypothesis as to the role played by zinc and copper in Alzheimer's Disease, and how for the longest time he could not get the science establishment to so much as give him the time of day, research-wise.

That is one of the reasons I shudder at the centralization of research funding at the hands of government. It'd be bad enough to have a few private corporations control who gets what money for research, but when such decisions are placed in the hands of government, I believe the results tend to be much worse, as the decision-making becomes more centralized and more dependent on results that increase the scope of government and consequently, less dependent on whether the results of that research have any utility in real life.

Areas that are thus affected include a lot of medical research, the issue of global warming, as well as space exploration.

The talking bimbette on the morning news today did an ineptly transparent job of attempting to foment fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding "mad cow" disease; hell, the poor dear was nearly beside herself with hysteria as she tried, unsuccessfully, to steer her interviewee (someone from one of the Colorado universities) to the inescapable conclusion that The End Is (probably) At Hand.

In doing some background reading about PayPal and how successful I might be in invoking an American Express chargeback in case I don't see my eBay merchandise soon, I happened to run across a piece in which it was reported that PayPal had violated the Patriot Act last year by allowing its services to be used for the payment of gambling debts. Now, to be sure, the transfer of funds to cover bogus gambling debts could probably be a heck of a revenue source if you're a terrorist in search of lucre (it's also been used as a device in detective literature, if memory serves, although I can't recall any specific stories in this regard). But it seems to me that this is simply another instance of using a bill ostensibly passed as a counter-terrorism measure to achieve traditional crime-fighting goals by other means (the other instance I'm aware of is the prosecution of drug dealers as terrorists under the Act).

And as far as the eBay situtation is concerned, I asked for and received the contact information for the seller, which turned out to be spectacularly unhelpful. When I called in the morning, a child answered the phone and a very strange conversation ensued. When I called a couple of hours ago, an answering machine took the call. My PayPal research indicates that they (PayPal) really don't like customers to do chargebacks (when you complain to a credit card company, which then withholds payment from the other party). Instead, they prefer you pursue reimbusement through them (albeit at a $25 charge, which, for a $35 item, hardly seems worth the effort, although I digress...).

I can't help but note however, that the seller has a 100% approval rating on eBay, and that the last three or four buyers left feedback almost a month after their deals ended. So, maybe I'm just impatient, I don't know... (I don't think so, but maybe I should be more patient.)

Gotta go cook something for Galina.

Cheers...

I may be turning into an old worry wart...

I finally got an e-mail from my eBay correspondent, to the effect that my package had been delivered today, with delivery confirmation. Over the past few days, I had imagined, briefly, this to be a plausible scenario (i.e., the package had been sent and the seller just wasn't too communicative), but kept my attention focused on the lack of response from the seller. I shall, of course, go down to the store tomorrow morning and check things out, which I was going to do anyway. There is undoubtedly a lesson in here, somewhere.

Prior to receiving that e-mail, I put a nice 2200-word dent in a 6000-word assignment for Monday, but just couldn't keep my attention focused on the job at hand. After cooking dinner (pork chops and fried cabbage), I upgraded my copy of SuperMemo 2002 on the VAIO and then sat down to play a bit with the Wiki software on the "companion disk" enclosed with my copy of The Wiki Way that I'd acquired earlier this year.

Interestingly enough, after a frustrating hour or so trying to get the software to work, I decided to see if there was any information "out there" about the apparent failure of the software to work, despite my efforts and review of the source code.

It turns out that the software on the CD was "mangled" for Macs (i.e., lines are separated by LF characters) in the first printing of the book, which is apparently what I have. Downloading Windows-mangled code (where lines are separated by two-character CR+LF combinations) took only a minute and bingo! everything started working.

I also took a closer look at the TWiki software, because a few nights ago I dreamed of a major improvement to my job-tracking capability which would cut down on the labor of repetitively typing the names of project managers and the companies they work for.

* * *Dreams have been very interesting, lately, in that I've been having them. Last night, I dreamed a very well-developed science fiction story with a beginning, a middle, and an end involving one of the oldest themes in the book: an alien invasion. Moreover, I dreamed it as one might see it on a screen.

I remember reviewing some of the main plot points upon arising, but they appeared much weaker in the cold, gray light of morning than they had while I was unconscious. However, that's not my main concern - nor am I, really, "concerned" about having had the dream - except to note that normally, I don't recall any dreams that I may have while sleeping. We'll see what develops during tonight's session with Morpheus, which ought to start a scant few minutes from now.

Cheers...