Automated Merger of GEDCOM Files

Have you ever had the misfortune of having to merge two GEDCOM files while doing family history research? I hope not. It’s dehumanizing. Dehumanizing? Yes, because doing a job that should be done 99% by a machine is most definitely de-human-izing.

Here’s a typical example:
Billy Bob Jones and Suzy Lee Jones are a brother and sister team working together on their family’s genealogy. The two of them live two or three time zones away from each other, and so they each maintain their own files and coordinate their research by email.

One day, Billy makes an amazing discovery: he finds the birth date of their great-great-great-great-great grandfather Olaf. What’s more, he discovers that Olaf’s death date was off by 5 years, so he updates that. Billy emails Suzy to tell her the exciting news, and Suzy requests that he send an updated version of the GEDCOM file so she can benefit from his new research. So Billy sends the requested file.

Suzy imports the file, which only contains Olaf and his ancestors, a total of 200 people (impressive, it’s true). Then she begins to merge all of the now-duplicate individuals, sources, events, …. Five hours later, she finishes, and now wonders if the five hours of tedious merging operations was a fair price to pay for the updated information.

Here’s what should happen:
Upon receiving the GEDCOM file from Billy, Suzy imports it into her family history software, which informs her that one individual has been updated, one fact being modified, another added. She tells the program that this is A-OK and she procedes to make further Amazing Discoveries.

Here’s what should __really__ happen:
Upon updating the Olaf information, Billy tells his genealogy program to notify Suzy of all updates made since they last synchronized their records. The next time Suzy opens her genealogy program, it notifies her of the new information provided by Billy, and she approves the merger.

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People have been thinking about this problem for years. The sad reality, however, is that such an advanced merge capability does not seem to be available in any current consumer software (as far as I can tell). Well, why not? Part of the reason is surely that reliably determining the differences between family trees is a complex problem. But what if both versions of the tree are guaranteed to have a common individual? In other words, what if we know that Billy and Suzy’s parents are going to exist in both of their files. What if, in fact, they exist in both files with the same record ID’s? What if the family history software allows the two to synchronize their data by specifying the ID of a common root individual?

If we can depend on constant record ID’s, our job is much simpler. So what if Billy imports his current data into a new system, after which Suzy synchronizes with his system, essentially copying over all of his data, with matching record ID’s and a set common individual. Then, when one of the two makes a change, resynchronizing involves no more than comparing the corresponding ancestors of the common individual, notifying the user of any differences.

That’s where my project comes in. ‘geddiff’ is designed to be the program that does that comparison. It’s straightforward (is it not?) It limits its scope so the algorithm stays relatively simple. It will easily integrate with revision control systems such as Subversion. It will be licensed under the LGPL license, allowing anybody to link to it or call it externally, while ensuring that the source code itself remains open. It will be based on libgedcom, avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort.

Is this relevant? Is it doable? Does anybody want to help? Let me know!

References:
Geddiff project at Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/geddiff/
Beyond Project, discussing many of the same ideas: http://www.beyondproject.org/
BeyondGen, related discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/beyondgen?lnk=li

Counterpoint

This is my response to the email I received from “La Russophobe,” whose blog I commented on recently. I have to say that this is the most I ever want to become involved with “blog politics.” I’m not particularly interested in explaining and defending my viewpoints at great depth; I really just express them for my own benefit (putting things in writing can clarify your thinking quite a bit) and to show what page I’m on, rather than to engage in any intensive dialectic.

That said, this letter does serve largely as a defense of my previous position.

I have taken minor liberties in editing this version for publication.

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La Russophobe,
I want to thank you for your thoughtful response to my blog post. You raise a large number of interesting points — in fact, so many that I’m sure that I’ll fail to address some of them, for which I apologize. First of all, I apologize for any offense taken at my post. Inasmuch as I ever descend into ad hominem criticism, you are right to point out my hypocrisy.

Now, as to why I criticize your style. By no means am I coming down against there being variety of rhetorical styles. I am, however, stating why I believe that your particular style, as it has been used throughout the centuries, is less effective than others. My belief is that the use of what you might call “fiery rhetoric” is not conducive to a substantive discussion of the facts. This is not to say that in your posts you do not discuss facts, but rather that it is difficult for me, at least, and I suppose other readers to focus on the core of your arguments because the language is so impassioned. This is part of why I believe that the United States presidential debates are so frustratingly shallow — because the “winner” is whichever candidate can score a rhetorical knockout, rather than the one who presents the most compelling ideas. This is why I seemingly come down in support of Yuri’s blog and his style. When I read his writing, I feel like I’m able to glean valuable insight by learning about a Russian’s perspective on his own country. When I read your writing, I simply feel angry! In my mind you do a disservice to your own work by using attack-style language because it provokes an emotional response that overwhelms the value of your logical argument.

This brings up something else. What is the goal of your blog? Your stated purpose is “recording the rise (and hopefully fall) of the Neo-Soviet Union.” I am sorry that you have already concluded that Russia is indeed a “Neo-Soviet Union” — an evil state akin to that built by Lenin and Stalin and their successors. While I agree that it is possible that such a situation will come about, I also believe that by deciding that it has already, you actually make it more likely that it will; a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your rhetorical style, as I discussed above, seems aimed at provoking anger, fear, and even hate, which is certainly counter-productive. By provoking fear and hate towards Russia, you make it more likely that Western citizens will call upon their leaders to take an unnecessarily hard line with Russia, which will cause a Russian response and (perhaps) a chain reaction of policies leading to “Cold War 2.” Is that really what you want? Or would you prefer to discuss Russia in a way that causes readers to understand — without engendering fear or hate? In my view, that is what the goal of all Westerners should be concerning Russia. Provoking a negative reaction to Russia may score ratings, but please consider that there are far more important things in this world than the popularity of any blog.

Finally, I’m just in this for fun, really. It’s an interest of mine. I’m going to be taking a Russian class in the fall, my brother was a missionary in Samara, many of my friends have studied Russian and will be studying in Russia soon. I’m not looking to be a professional lobbyist or anything, but simply to expand my understanding of that country and throw my thoughts out here and there. Also, I’m studying linguistics, which could explain my fascination with your style of writing, or even with your pseudonym (which seems to be an interesting combination of both Greek and Romantic language elements.) I feel like Yuri’s coverage of the child sex exploitation issue was insightful (see his article, Boys For Sale: Russia’s Forgotten Children — a nice tip of the hat to that great musical of the 1960’s, Oliver,) providing a window on Russia that should give Westerners pause. I don’t feel like Yuri posted that information to distract people from what was discussed in the Wall Street Journal article, but to show that the true tragedy of Russia is, and has always been, human rather than political. It’s similar to dissident videos coming out of North Korea that instead of focusing on the glitz of Pyongyang or the intrigue of the nuclear weapons program that attract so much Western media attention, focus on images of little orphan boys, homeless, scrounging scraps of food out of the mud, or of refugees telling of cannibalism in the face of crippling famine and governmental apathy.

I hope that this gives you a better idea of my views on things. I intend to post both your letter and my response to my blog (though it may take me a day or two to get around to it — it’s the end of a term here at school and I’ve got to go out of town soon) although I’d prefer we keep any further discussion private at least initially. Thanks again for your thoughtfulness and for the time you’ve taken to read my response. I hope that we leave as friends, agreeing to disagree but glad for the open exchange of ideas.

Take care, and best wishes,
Josh

Point

I reproduce here an email I received in response to my previous post, “How to Tell Constructive Writing from Diatribe.”

Dear Josh,
After coming across your comments about our blog on yours, we thought you’d be interested in an update on the situation, namely that the author of Russia Blog has admitted that his post about the Wall Street Journal was inaccurate and misleading. We hope (actually, we expect) that you’ll post this e-mail as a comment to the post about us on your blog as it will undoubtedly be of interest to your group and provide us with a fair opportunity to respond to your statements about us and flesh out the factual record (be sure to let us know if you do).

The author of Russia Blog attacked the Wall Street Journal article about the Extremism Law in two different posts, the original and then a second piece about an alleged child sex ring in Siberia. He argued that Western press was failing to cover the sex story, wrongly focusing instead on issues of press freedom under the Extremism Law. However, he gave absolutely no source material about the Siberia allegations. Several readers called him on this, and he provided links to local news stories from the Siberia region. A reader then challenged him on his claim that the Western press should be reporting those stories, pointing out that since Russian newspapers are notoriously unreliable and the papers are issue were also quite obscure, expecting the Western press to take their accounts at face value and rush to print with them would have been irresponsible. At the very least, only national reports could be given credence, he argued.

The author responds by admitting he was wrong about the Journal and about several other points, and should have focused his ire elsewhere. Here is what he states in response to a commenter:

“I agree with the fact that the sources I listed are local. Also, I apologize for assumption that you “have” to trust RussiaBlog website. The readers who personally know me and other fellows of Discovery Institute do trust information on this website. I guess, what I am trying to say is, it’s not foreign media being guilty. There are think tanks and policy groups, which feed information to journalists and newspapers. The WSJ article was based upon information and report provided by Carnegie Endowment, which has a budget of over $7,000,000 a year for the work on Russia. 3 million goes to the Moscow office, the rest stays with the DC office. Khodorkovsky and Fund Open Russia [I don’t know for sure that the Open Russia link is right — ed.] have been generously supporting this organization.”

Unfortunately, however, the author of Russia Blog hasn’t yet posted a correction in the post about the Wall Street Journal, so a reader who focuses only on that item wouldn’t know about it.

As well, you might be interested to know that the author of Russia Blog works for a think tank which could be viewed as in competition with the Carnegie Foundation, so mixed motives might be present in formulating its analysis.

As you know from reading our post about the author (Yuri Mamchur), which was occasioned when this same commenter complained about Mamchur’s post to us (one of our self-appointed tasks is serving as ad hoc public editor for the Russia blogging community, so readers often bring this kind of concern to us), we exposed the fact that Mamchur grossly misrepresented the Journal’s position on the Extremism Law by failing to acknowledge a huge amount of reporting from other sources that had come to the same conclusion and citing/quoting NONE siding with Mamchur’s view. Our post provides a long list of quotes and citations to this material (this was the main reason we published it). We were very disappointed to see that your blog makes no reference to the citations and quotations set forth in our post, and no reference to the fact that Mamchur’s post is competely devoid of any citations to or quotations from published material agreeing with his view of the extremism law. This is a very gross defect in your comments about the issues, and we hope to see you correct it. (As an aside, you also seem to imply that Russia Blog is the work of only one person, which is not true, so you might want to correct that as well.)

Instead of fairly characterizing the source material offered by the two articles, your blog chooses to focus solely on the confrontational style of our rhetoric. We believe you’re entirely wrong to do so — but not, of course, because our rhetoric is free of “vitriol and attack.” We believe that the only reason Mamchur issued this half-baked correction was his knowledge that, if he didn’t, he’d face another assault on La Russophobe. We believe that radical political leaders from Malcolm X to Lenin to Rush Limbaugh to Don Imus have used the “vitriol and attack” style to great effect, and our blog has show exponential growth in the first few months of its short existence. Maybe you aren’t aware, as a white male, of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he said that people who asked him to change his tone and be less agressive and confrontational were more dangerous to the cause of racial justice in America than the members of the KKK. If you aren’t, you should read the letter before you suggest that there be only one style of writing allowed, or that only one style of writing can be effective. Even if our style of writing wasn’t effective, and had no role at all in prompting Mamchur’s admission (for the record, we believe the evidence is overwhelming that it is effective), we believe it’s a form of self-expression that should be nurtured the way all diversity is nurtured. Criticize us by all means but if, as is the case, you don’t recognize any of the positive aspects of our writing while pointing out what you believe are negatives, then we fail to see how your comments are, ironically, any different from what you accuse ours of being.

And there’s one other thing you ought to know about this situation, which you would have known if you had asked us (by the way, we’ll be happy to answer questions from your group about our post if you have any). It’s this: Some time ago, we published two articles on Russia Blog. Yes, that’s right, on Russia Blog. Both were written in the same vitriolic, attacking style that characterizes our blog, yet Russia Blog published them. The posts drew our customary high level of interest, for which Russia Blog publicly thanked us. Then we discovered some material published on Russia Blog by another contributor which seemed to contain questionable sourcing and factual assertions. We challenged the authors of Russia Blog to resolve the situation, and when they wouldn’t (at that time they were extremely reluctant to acknowledge any error) we broke off relations with them in protest (and outed the situation on our Blog in posts you can find in our sidebar section). To cover themselves, in a highly dishonest move (and a silly one, since our post outing the situation had already appeared), the authors of Russia Blog then buried a comment in one of their posts claiming that they had ejected us from their blog and totally ignoring our accuracy concerns. This claim was utterly false and was proved so, but we didn’t find out about it until someone notified us of the comment’s existence some time later (this too is documented on our blog and since you could have linked to the material, we’re disappointed that you didn’t).

So, in light of that, perhaps you can see why our post about Russia Blog was particularly acidic, most justifiably so. In the future, we’d advise you to check out a situation a bit more carefully before you rush to publish something that is, quite obviously, a half-truth.

However, we’re delighted to know that your group is discussing our post with interest and would be happy to receive more feedback from you. In particular, we’d be interested in knowing which post of the two your readers found to contain more source material and which they found more compelling to read. We acknowledge that if you truly gave a fair and careful reading to our post (which we doubt) then our style may have prevented you from appreciating the point it was making and from noticing the vast amount of citations and quotiations it contained, so that’s a valuable thing for us to think about. If we had it to do over again we’d do it the same way, since we don’t feel any correction from Russia Blog would have issued following your approach (we know Yuri a good deal better than you do, after all). But like all good writers we are always on the lookout for ways to improve our writing, so we always welcome constructive criticism. On the other hand, we think that if you were more familiar with the body of our work, both on La Russophobe and on other blogs, you’d see that in fact we can do your pet style too, and admire our range.

Very truly yours,
La Russophobe

How to Tell Constructive Writing from Diatribe

Alright friends, I’m going to ask you to compare two blog posts. After that we’ll discuss the differences, just like you used to do in school! The first one is at Russia Blog: “Slander” – The Wall Street Journal Misinforms on Extremism Legislation.

The second is at La Russophobe ( a name which, by the way, means The Russia-fearer (probably feminine, too, because of the ‘la’ definite article): Yuri Mamchur: Neo-Soviet Con Man

What’s your impression? The Russia Blog article was written to persuade (mostly Western) readers that the Wall Street Journal’s interpretation of Russia’s new anti-extremism legislation is incorrect. Russia Blog gives its opposing interpretation that the law Putin signed was not a crackdown on political dissidents or journalists, but rather on Neo-Nazi and Neo-Fascist and threats to that nation’s stability. This is achieved through quotes both from the WSJ article and also from the text of the new law, as well as historical comparisons.

Russophobe, on the other hand, writes to provoke through ad-hominem attacks, attempting to prove the rising specter of the “Neo-Soviet Union.” In fairness, La Russophobe is not the work of a single blogger, but is rather a meta-blog of sorts. (Another note: one of this particular author’s targets, Konstantin at Russian Blog has an interesting response addressing that attack. I only link that scuffle because it helps clarify the situation.)

I noticed that the Russophobe post uses a very provocative vocabulary, and decided to do a little informal analysis comparing it to Russia Blog’s post:

Russophobe
word count: 2575 (561 were the big block quote in the middle, leaving 2014)
count of adjectives:
insane: 4
crazed: 3
outrageous[ly]: 3
wacko: 2
extreme (not ‘extremism’): 1

Russia Blog
word count: 1855
count of adjectives:
insane/insanity: 0
crazed/crazy: 0
outrageous[ly]: 0
wacko: 0
extreme (not ‘extremism’): 0

My real point here is that if you want to persuade and be the one who leads a debate to the conclusion that you support, you can be much more influential by being reasonable than be labeling yourself as a reactionary through attack and vitriol. I’m certainly not perfect and have my moments of more extreme thought (see an example here). But please, if your argument has any merit, that merit will be intrinsic to the argument itself and not dependent on the words you use or who else believes the same thing. Truth stands independent of — but not inaccessible to — perception.

Also interesting reading:
U.S. Suffers Winner’s Complex — Gorbachev
UN lowers risk level for Chechnya — This is added support to Russia Blog’s assertion that Chechnya has stabilized significantly in the last 6 months. I don’t know what’s really going on there, but here’s a piece of evidence to consider.

BYU Dating Reform: Part 1

So over at Date Club Prophecies you’ll find a pseudo-serious but still thought provoking (in some ways) discussion of dating. Honestly, dating in its present form at Brigham Young University and in the United States in general seems inadequate as a match-making institution and perhaps needs some reenvigorating. Here are some of my thoughts.

The Dilemma

For those who are not familiar with the BYU dating scene, we here are rather traditional as far as the responsibilities of guys compared to the responsibilities of girls when it comes to dating. So it’s incumbent on a guy to ask out a girl. Only very rarely do the girls take the initiative in asking out a guy, and then it is often (at least by me) interpreted as overly aggressive, a definite sign that she must have the hots for you. Just as guys often interpret a girl asking them on a date as a sign of very significant interest, girls often feel that if a guy asks them out more than once, he must have already made up his mind to marry her and is now “moving in for the kill”.

This paranoia is partly founded in BYU’s history and reputation as the “marriage capitol of the world:” some who graduate from BYU single would like to get their money back because they thought that a guaranteed marriage proposal was included with the price of tuition. Probably more significant than the effect of elevated expectations, it’s likely that the girls’ fears of creepy pursuit are based on the collective bad experiences of all modernday BYU women. There are without doubt guys who pursue girls with a singleminded intensity that terrifies their “quarry” and for whom a single date seems like sure confirmation that the girl is ready for marriage. I have known guys with this mindset; indeed, I’ve to some extent been part of this mindset. Creepy guys in Central Park make everybody in New York afraid of their neighbors. Creepy guys in the BYU dating pool make girls afraid of the rest of us.

The Most Frightening Possibility

But casting all of the blame at the feet of “those creepy guys” is avoiding the most frightening possibility: What if it’s me? This thought must eventually enter the mind of all but the most dense and egotistical of BYU’s despairing bachelors: What if I can’t get a girlfriend — can’t even get a girl to go on more than one date with me without getting creeped out — because I’m just not cool enough? What if I just don’t have what it takes to compete in the cut-throat competition for a chica? Oooh, what a dark and hideous thought that one is!

The notion lie that somebody is simply not “cool enough” is total garbage. That idea assumes that the likelihood of the desired result (getting a girlfriend) is a function of the “coolness” (whatever that means) of the guy seeking it. This is true for those whose entire existence revolves around external form and superficiality rather than quality of character and spirit. But for the rest of us… well, there are patterns. More energetic, flirtacious people probably have an easier time getting into relationships because they’re capable of attracting more positive attention at themselves. But overall — I like to tell myself — there are more important factors, especially when you consider not just “hooking up,” but doing so with somebody that you really respect and admire, who’s more than merely an attractive figure.

What are these factors and how do you employ them to your advantage? Stay tuned for Part 2 of BYU Dating Reform where we’ll consider Five Totally Speculative Non-Guaranteed Steps to Getting Your First Girlfriend.

Eighties Heritage Month

Paris makes more than the law, it makes the fashion

–Victor Hugo in Les Miserables

Would it be accurate to say that prior to the 20th century, very few people had the luxury of worrying about fashion? The impression I get when I read an old novel is that back in “the day” the rich (and the middle class, when there was one) were the only segment of society who weren’t struggling merely to survive and were able to fritter away their time pursuing the latest fashions.

In today’s unprecedented affluence, we have the luxury of falling into the cycle of fashion: ever in need of something new to stimulate our minds and our senses, we are not only willing to put up with frequent change in styles and trends, but we actually welcome it. Just what the girls (and the fashion-minded guys out there) always wanted: an excuse to buy new clothes. But with all of this desire for something novel to entertain us, it seems that the best we can do is rehash the clothes and accessories and hairstyles of the past into a short-lived fashion du jour.

Take, for example, the “comebacks” that the 1970’s and 1980’s have seen in the last ten years or so. Really, as much as I might be inclined to condemn this preoccupation with style as “frittering,” I also think that some parts of those decades’ wardrobes were just plain sweet. But I am a traditionalist; I’d rather see a comeback of some ’30’s and ’40’s stuff. And you know what, I think we do see a bit of that. I would honestly rather wear some nice slacks and a collared shirt to school. I just feel better when I dress a little bit nice!

But anyway, tonight some friends of mine threw an ’80’s dance party, complete with the music, the clothes, and the sweetly-ghetto Namco video game system. Nothing like a round of Galaga to bring back the good ol’ days. I suggested that we campaign to get Congress to make July or August be National Eighties Heritage Month. Why not take some time to acknowledge the great debt we owe to those poor souls who suffered through the side pony-tails, the short shorts and the midriff shirts, the big hair, the nasty, heavy makeup, the big striped tube socks and the fat old baseball caps to bring about a decade or two where we can be free from the oppression of fashion illogic. And then, whenever (if ever?) David Bowie dies, we’ll make his birthday into a holiday as well.

Long live the eighties! But don’t let them live for too long — we need to get on to the next big fashion… the nineties?

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Learning C++

I’m taking (actually, retaking) Computer Science 240 right now. So I’m learning C++. This is someting I’ve always wanted to do. I was maybe 10 years old when we got Turbo C++. My dad was the only one who knew how to use it, but still, I had fun playing with the “Heap Walker” program. I wasn’t able to learn simply by experimentation, like I did with QBASIC. Now, having paid some of my dues with tuition and time, I feel like I’m learning the language. The project we’re working on right now in class is an implementation of make. I’ve been hacking away, learning how to deal with circular #include’s, finding memory leaks and fixing segmentation faults. Maybe sometime soon I’ll be able to start contributing to some Open Source projects - another long-time goal of mine.

Here’s something I would like to code into KDevelop: a plugin that allows the file list sidebar to be sorted to have the most recently used files on top. Somehow there has to be a more optimal way to switch between source files than pushing Ctrl+/ and typing the name of the file, or moving the mouse cursor over to click on the ‘File List’ sidebar button, then back over to the file that you want to open. How about a key combination that cycles through the last five most recently used files? There must be some better way.

I Cast Mine Pod at Thee!

Lately I’ve been listening to the UbuntuOS podcast about the Ubuntu Linux distro. It’s a good show, for sure, though there’s a bit too much down time where the guys are just sitting there saying, “Yeah….uh…. so linux is pretty cool, yeah…” It really does remind me of my conversations with my brother, but with some more varietous viewpoints.

The people on the ‘cast are constantly citing website addresses or terminal commands. It would be useful to develop a technology that would allow the people speaking on the podcast to send text directly to the listeners. Imagine the show mentions a website, and up pops in the corner of your screen or your media player a notification window. Why not use libnotify/notification-daemon? Actually, such a technology already exists in the form of Vorbis metadata. At least one program, called FreeCast, seems to have a feature like that.

Last night at some absurdly late hour (as if 2:30am isn’t late) I read a the keynote from OLS. I was very impressed with the debunking of the “Linux has no device support” myth. It’s worth a read.

Amigote vuelve a levantarse la cabeza fea

Ahhhhrrhrhrhrhhaarrrrhhhhhh! That’s the sound of a thousand joints popping and creaking as I stretch out my blogging muscles. Faithful reader (how can you be a faithful reader of a blog that never posts!?), surely you have observed that a burning VW van no longer graces the top of our beloved peasant kingdom. I did love that burned out terrorist conveyance, but our ways have parted like Hamilton and Burr, like Lenin and Trotsky, like a pizza delivery boy and his sweet pepperoni confections. Now the reign of the ostrich is upon us, and it’s time for another Blog Identity CrisisTM. No, I take that back. The last time we peered into the soul of The Vato, we unearthed an unbearable horror that ought not to afflict humanity again for another milennium.

Entonces… la cosa es que debo explicarles los acontecios de mi vida de los meses que he pasado sin blogear nada. First is that I passed my morphology/phonology class (Linguistics 427) with an A, giving me a 4.0 GPA in all of the classes in the major except for the Senior Seminar (490) which I should take in the fall semester. I’m very glad about that, and I owe the good grade very much to the Lord for helping me to stay sane and do my best, and to my study group, the legendary MorphoMasters.

Second is that the good ol’ español is suffering from serious neglect. Not a single class in the language since fall of last year! My little snippets of spanish in this and other posts are surely riddled with grammar errors that would make my 321 professor choke on his mole poblano (assuming he eats such delights with any degree of regularity.)

Third, I’m now retaking Computer Science 240, which I failed two years ago before I decided to bail out on the CS major. It’s going well so far, with two of our labs done, and the programming exam passed on the second try. The class is a basic course in C++ and advanced programming methodology. Being a great Linux user and fan, this is filling in an critical gap in my skills and knowledge. It’s a good feeling, although I doubt I’ll still be saying that when we’re in the throes of the reimplimentation of ‘make’ or the last project, a chess game. But at this point, with a big black mark on my GPA coming from my previous attempt at this class, I have absolutely nothing to lose (except for a bit of tuition money, of course). Hopefully all will go well!

Fourth, I’ve been following the situation in North Korea very closely, my main sources of information being the Korea Liberator and NKZone blogs listed in the “Liberation” section of my blogroll.

All my love to my friends and family, if I can ever persuade them to keep tabs on my blog!
- Josh

TA and Publishing

Guess what! I just got hired on as a teaching assistant for Dr. Alan Manning’s Linguistics 430 “Theoretical Syntax” starting this fall. The fact that I got the high score on the final was probably a big help. I’m really excited because it’ll give me some great experience, and help me to keep everything I learned this semester fresh in my mind.

Also, my article “Gutenberg’s Heir: The Internet as an Agent of Linguistic Change” was published in BYU’s English Linguistics student journal, Schwa, Issue 1. While I’m not quite sure how you can get a hold of a copy, I’m very proud to see my work in print.

So, two big milestones for me in the past two weeks. Hooray for a great end of the semester! Almost as if in celebration, my friends and I all went camping and hiking last yesterday near Hobble Creek, close to Springville.

The Hikers

Glorious Crossing

Cool Flames

An Orange on Fire

The Source

The Real Source (closeup)

The World According To Me

Okay, I just took the “Are you a neoconservative?” quiz at the Christian Science Monitor website and it tells me that I’m a liberal. Okay, so I disagree with President Bush on a lot of things, but I don’t think that’s quite right. I want to explain my position, just to help myself be more clear about it.

Nation Building/Regime Change/Foreign Policy in General: Attempting to remake the world in the express image of the United States is a mistake, and does little but provoke the hatred of the billions of “have-nots” around the globe. I honestly believe that the best interest of the United States is to pursue the best interest of every other nation. Can we provide significant, infrastructure-building humanitarian aid (rather than simply food handouts)? Can we help to improve communications systems and education? Can we help to improve economies by teaching sound fiscal and monetary policies by example?

Which leads us to National Debt: $8,407,057,651,820.76 as of April 2006, that is, eight trillion four hundred and seven billion fifty-seven million six hundred fifty-one thousand eight hundred twenty dollars and seventy six cents. (See the Bureau of the Public Debt for up-to-date statistics. The fact that we have a “Bureau of the Public Debt” is itself a sign of its enormity.)

The continued insistence of politicians in both parties to finance government spending by expanding the national debt is not only bad policy, it’s dishonest. Every single cent of that debt has to be paid for one way or another, whether it’s by causing our economy to tank through crowding out of private investment (money put into federal bonds can’t go into private capital investment,) or by an insane tax increase - this will be paid for by us. No supply-side or demand-side or ghetto-side economic policy is going to expand the economy by enough to create an extra eight trillion dollars worth of revenue. The simple fact is we either have to raise taxes, or cut spending, or hold out until the bubble bursts. I favor eliminating tax loopholes and decreasing spending.

China: China’s human rights abuses, past and especially present, cannot be ignored. While I’m not entirely sure if this justifies our withdrawal of preferred trading status, it makes me consider that possibility. That regime has on its record the oppression of the Fulan Gong movement, refusal to accept the fact that Taiwan is no longer part of their nation but is de facto independent, continued use of prison labor and the Laogai prison system (the Chinese equivalent of the Soviet Gulag), violent suppression of dissidents (not just in Tienenman Square), and the obligatory suppression of free speech, press, and religion in general.

However, all of the current fear-mongering talk about Chinese military buildup and the need of a radical United States response to it is more of self-fulfilling prophecy than mere observation. China will eventually become a free nation not by any external aggression but by the actions of its own people. Our goal should be to avoid provoking a conflict but to be firm on human rights issues. Let’s mold China into a friend as much as possible. Let’s let their rising economic and political power be a benefit to their people as much as possible. No Chamberlain-esque “Peace in our time” appeasement, but not blind, hawkish hate either.

Alliances: I’m with George Washington, who warned against “entangling alliances.” That’s not because I think international cooperation is impossible, or that organizations like NATO don’t have (or never have had) a place. The real reason is because I have read Isaiah in the Old Testament.

Huh? What does that have to do with anything?

Actually, Isaiah has everything to do with our situation. Isaiah consistently warned his nation against trusting in alliances with Egypt or with this or that nation. We need to be wary of trusting in alliances with foreign powers as well. During the Revolution, we cultivated the favor of the French, who then leaned clearly towards the Confederates during the Civil War. During World War II we cultivated the help of the Soviets, who turned out to be cunning opportunists and our worst enemy for the next 46 years or so. We gave arms and assistance to Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviets, only to end up invading their country later on. We supported the Shah in Iran. We withdrew support from Batista in Cuba, allowing Castro to come to power. We threw all kinds of support at “democratic” Russia, which turns out to have been a false friend veering towards dictatorship again. Now we’re trying to build up India as a counterweight to China, and on and on.

Do you see a pattern? I think that we need to listen to Isaiah’s advice and focus more on becoming a better people than on finding salvation in foreign powers.

Welfare: This is pretty simple: some people are indeed so incapacitated as to be unable to support themselves. This includes some elderly citizens, the mentally handicapped or severely mentally ill, or the physically disabled. “Handouts” in the form of Social Security checks and the like are appropriate to support those who truly cannot support themselves. They are foolish when given to those who are capable of gainful employment. Here’s why:

If somebody is poor, uneducated, living on the streets, etc., the way to turn their lives around is not by giving them “a steady diet of government cheese” - handouts will merely perpetuate their dependency. The key is to make any such handouts dependent on their willingness to work - or if they’re unable to work - to get an education. An education is really what the government should be paying for. Then, after the person is educated (assuming they stick with it) they should be able to get a job. If after a certain grace period they are still unemployed, the government gradually reduces and then eliminates its handouts.

Okay, what’s wrong with this idea? Really, if somebody still refuses to work after having the opportunity of a free education and government support, then they are asking for a life of squalor and poverty, and they have little to complain about except their own selves. Well, there are some potential difficulties:

• Who qualifies for such support?


• Who qualifies for continued support as an elderly, handicapped, or otherwise disabled person?


• Should single parents get support for an education, or simply get support for childcare? (I’m in favor of an education)

Immigration: The motto I hear repeated most often is “Let them immigrate, but let them do so legally.” I agree entirely with this. However, the unspoken sentiment is, “Let them immigrate legally - fortunately, it’s practically impossible to do so, so we won’t have to deal with unfamiliar people coming into our country.”

America is for everybody. No, not everybody all at once. We’re not just going to open up our borders and let whoever wants to come rushing in. But we have to remember another motto: “We’re all immigrants.” None of us were born here in the United States because we’re somehow better than others and so deserve greater opportunities. We pretty much just got here by chance. So we have absolutely no right to make America into an exclusive club. That’s a great way to encourage anti-Americanism and to wreck the moral foundation of our thriving economy all at the same time. Let them immigrate legally, and make it possible for real, significant numbers of people to do so. And not just the wealthy citizens of other countries. What happened to this idea?:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Radio Free Monticello

Join the fight to free the tenants! http://www.radiofreemonticello.info

NetLing Release and Website

From the Release Announcement:

The bits are on the wire and NetLing is live! See the wiki at http://www.netling.org/

NetLing is a tool to aid in historical analysis and live monitoring of lexical variation using Internet-available bodies of text as corpora (i.e. Web, Usenet, mailing list archives, IRC chat, etc.) The initial release is designed to analyze the correspondence of the Linux Kernel Mailing List, though expansion into a wider range of data sources is a priority due to the extremely technical nature of that list. The program itself is written in Ruby and designed to interface with a MySQL database, although efforts at database independence (to allow Postgres, Firebird, and so on) have been made, and will be a focus for the next release.

NetLing was inspired by the author’s observation that his English usage began to shift lexically away from American and towards British and continental European usage as he interacted in online mailing lists with people from those regions. Though the project initially focuses on English, its ultimate vision is to gain a view of past and current directions in the lexicon of many of the world’s languages.
The project is so far a one man show by Josh Hansen, an undergraduate student in linguistics at Brigham Young University. Help and answers are available at joshhansen@byu.edu

Down with Eclipse.org’s Flirtation with Playboy

Okay, this irks me. Good old Eclipse, the Java development environment, is taking advantage of the generous offer of “Playboy Enterprises” to host a mirror site of much of its software. I publicly protest this tacit endorsement of one of the great producers of filth and destroyers of homes in our country. Eclipse Foundation, you have enough mirrors. Stop giving free PR to Playboy.