2001 News

Since the last update of this page, I moved to a different state, started a job, and got married. I thought that was excuse enough for a bit of an overhaul.

Item: I graduated from Iowa State University. That's all.

I'm going to have to find a new place to put this web page after they kick me off. I'd hate to end up on GeoCities or something. . .

I'd just like to say that I can't stand the Java API. In fact, Ken Arnold and Jim Gosling can kiss my ass. And Bill Joy, too. Said ass, by the way, has been parked for far too long in front of a Linux box with a faulty JVM implementation that can't even handle fonts to which AffineTransforms have been applied.

Here's a philosophical observation for all you computer types out there: just as a watched pot never boils, a watched batch job never runs.

I made a couple of minor updates to my résumé and the "author" page. There's little interesting news in Ben's life right now. Finals approach, and there is much left to be done.

Due to a severe parking shortage at weekend masses, St. Olaf's in Minneapolis opened the new Grace Lamb parking lot yesterday. A photograph of the new lot is available.

It was one year ago today that Melissa and I got engaged, and three years ago today that we started dating. I mention it here because it's a very important occasion to me.

I love you, sweetie!

The Iowa State Daily's editorial staff, in today's "In Our Opinion," said the following.

Insert your own joke here.

Sorry, but it looks like there won't be any pictures of the RGS crash. Somehow we failed to get any footage of the actual drop. At any rate, it might be better if we all just forget the whole thing.

This morning was the first test flight of the Recovery Guidance System, my senior design project, in about two years. After some trouble getting the data capture command to "take", the cutdown command was issued, dropping the RGS from the weather balloon. Unfortunately, the parafoil failed to unfurl. The whole mess almost landed on the roof of State Gymnasium, but ended up landing on the sidewalk instead. Since it wasn't really designed for a freefall trajectory, the electronics inside RGS suffered some pretty serious damage. We also bent three external antennae. As the designated radio-control "pilot" for the mission, I was very disappointed to miss my chance to steer the RGS in flight.

After crashing the box, we also managed to send a gradually-deflating weather balloon on a trip across Story County.

I'll try to post some pictures from the whole fiasco soon.

Though, as I expected, the Daily didn't print my letter, I did get a personal reply from Greg Jerrett. It was as follows.

Interesting reply. I couldn't help but notice a grammatical error, however. One might think that a graduate student in English would know better than to join a pair of independent clauses with a comma instead of a period. One would be wrong, though. What exactly do English majors study, if not English?

I submitted a letter to the editor of the Iowa State Daily today. I'm nearly certain that the pansies on the editorial board will be too embarrassed to print it, so I'll post it here as well.

I decided that today was the day to get my web site up, like I've been meaning to for over three years. It's not huge, but there are no dead links. I'll be adding to it periodically.

You have my word that this site will never deteriorate. The quality of this web site is very important to me.

The Internet broadcasts data without discrimination. It can help us become more enlightened, or it can help us become more backward, thoughtless, and foolish. Every medium of communication transmitted by the physical infrastructure of the Internet is prone to decay: email becomes chronically sloppy, web sites feature bland or useless content, USENET newsgroups fill with spam, and IRC channels and chat rooms waste bandwidth with the mindless banter of people with aliases like BoyzoneGal and Killer_undies.

The rush to bring Internet connectivity to every home and classroom is reminiscent of the rush for television a half-century ago. However, there is one major difference between the Internet and television: the Internet is a two-way medium. Try to imagine the useless noise that would have crowded the spectrum if every television owner had been able to broadcast his own show. The Internet brings such noise to life.

As people become more and more concerned with the speed and efficiency of communication, less and less consideration is given to the quality of communication. When data are considered, less is more. We don't need more data. We need better information. Our global signal-to-noise ratio is dropping rapidly, and we forget all too often that effort is still required to transform data into information. The American tendency to transform computers into pixel-pushing appliances is a reflection of our tendency to avoid the effort required to do anything truly useful.

This site is my slice of cyberspace. Although it amounts to no more than a megabyte or two, I will dedicate it to adding signal to the noise.

Index  2009  2008  2006  2005  2004  2003  2002  2001    Elizabeth Year One  Melissa Links Albums Contact PGP Keys         hersey @ acm.org Ben @ BLHersey.net 54,956 file requests since October 24th, 2001. A.M. D.G.

MAGNIFICAT ANIMA MEA DOMINVM ET EXVLTAVIT SPIRITVS MEVS IN DEO SALVTARI MEO QVIA RESPEXIT HVMILITATEM ANCILLAE SVAE ECCE ENIM EX HOC BEATAM ME DICENT OMNES GENERATIONES QVIA FECIT MIHI MAGNA QVI POTENS EST ET SANCTVM NOMEN EIVS ET MISERICORDIA EIVS IN PROGENIES ET PROGENIES TIMENTIBVS EVM

FECIT POTENTIAM IN BRACHIO SVO DISPERSIT SVPERBOS MENTE CORDIS SVI DEPOSVIT POTENTES DE SEDE ET EXALTAVIT HVMILES ESVRIENTES IMPLEVIT BONIS ET DIVITES DIMISIT INANES SVSCEPIT ISRAHEL PVERVM SVVM MEMORARI MISERICORDIAE SICVT LOCVTVS EST AD PATRES NOSTROS ABRAHAM ET SEMINI EIVS IN SAECVLA