Eph Linux
Stephen O’Grady ‘97 has switched to a Linux desktop. Let’s make sure that WSO briefs all the new first years about this.
Sox Diary: 8-31-04
Tuesday, August 31, 2004: Today was a good day. It was a great day. Were it not for Mike Myers (no, not the one of Austin Powers fame, and despite how it looked, not the one of Halloween fame, either) giving up a ninth-inning grand slam to make a laugher a 10-7 game, it might have been a historically great day. Oh hell, given that Foulke came in to close it out, and that the Yankees lost by what might be an American league record in a shutout shellacking at the hands of the Yankees, 22-0, and that we closed the gap to 3.5 (at one point they were up by 10.5; at the beginning of the month the lead was 8.5 games), and that we are up on the Angels by 2.5, and that the Rangers are losing, it was a pretty historically great day.
Crane versus Needham
Before the comments to the below post get overwhelmed, I though it best to move the debate between Sam Crane and Mike Needham ‘04 (and others) about Bush’s foreign policy to a new thread. That debate left off with
Prof. Crane:
You’re completely right that Jimmy Carter’s initial policy was to continue the “Republican” policy of detente (detente was “Republican” insofar as we define “Republican” to mean pre-1976 Republican Party civil war). I have not, do not, and most likely will not ever defend detente. Indeed, I was very pleased when Prof. Shanks asked the Record for a file photo of Prof. McAllister so the photo of Kissinger could finally be removed as his faculty facebook photo (hopefully by throwing in a Williams connection, I can keep this thread upon a little longer… though at the end of the day (literally) that’s just going to make me have to stay at work later to finish a paper… *sigh*).
Yes, he put an embargo on the Soviets. The effect of the grain embargo was to hurt our farmers and not the Soviets as he allowed everyone else to sell to the Soviets without any consequence.
Rice Hall?
At some point, the College will have to put a name on the new Baxter, thereby revealing the identity of the generous donor, perhaps as early as convocation in two weeks. A favorite game here at EphBlog is Name that Donor, our attempt to guess the identity of this alum. I think that we are looking for a
very rich but not shy Williams grad from a not-wealthy family without a history of major gifts to the College, probably not a current trustee, perhaps approaching a major reunion.
My latest guess is Joe Rice ‘54. Rice is a former trustee and quite active in College affairs. This past spring, while serving one of the chairs of his 50th reunion gift committee, Rice won the Rogerson Cup, “the College’s highest award for alumni service.” He is a co-founder of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, one of the oldest (and most successful) private equity firms. Rice also served as an officer in the Marine Corps 50 years ago.
One reason why Rice might have asked that his gift not be announced last spring is that it might have overshadowed the 50th reunion gift from the class of 1954. One count against Rice is that Morty’s letter about the gift makes it appear like Morty doesn’t know the giver that well, whereas I think that Morty does know Rice. In fact, I think that Rice was chairman of the committee that selected Morty.
Perhaps we have some readers who can give us a few more clues. If not Rice, then who?
UPDATE: One of EphBlog’s anonymous sources reports that this guess is also wrong. Alas, s(h)e refuses to provide any other guidance.
UPDATE 2: Our source suggests that we will never be able to guess. The donor is not a well-known Eph name. Hmmmm.
Sacred Blogging
David Senft ‘07 notes
I was reading through some WSO blogs and I noticed that lots of people are blogging about important things that seem to matter to them a lot. Things like Bush and Kerry and Michael Moore and dining services. To me, blogging always meant a place where you went to escape things like politics and dining services. To me, blogging is a little more personal, a little more sacred, as it were.
Personal thought for the day: My eight year old daughter’s latest favorite activity is to read to adults, especially her parents. She’ll read to herself and, sometimes, to her sister, but she really wants to read to me. For how many more years will I be fortunate enough to have her want to do this? Why don’t I take more advantage of it now?
Vitriolic
Derek Catsam ‘93 has started a raucous discussion on the Kerry versus Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) controversy at his other blog.
I would suspect that part of the reason we have been so quiet on Rebunk of late is that the presidential campaign, a topic obviously close to all three of us, has recently devolved into a rather unseemly war of words over John Kerry’s Vietnam service, a war of words into which Tom, Steve, and I have simply not wanted to become involved. But I do not want silence on my part to constitute an implication of apathy.
I am astounded that Republicans are going on the attack to impugn Kerry’s service.
In the comment section, Derek accuses the SBVT folks and their supporters of “vitriolic lies.” He asserts that:
You are not willing to condemn ads, books, interviews that lie. That lie outright. That so warp and misrepresent the truth as to be useful for nothing other than partisan gain. It just happens that your party is benefitting, thus, apparently, the silence.
I am no historian (!), but this seems over the top. I don’t think that everything that SBVT claim is a lie. In particular, their claim that Kerry has misrepresented his Chistmas visit to Cambodia (see page 17ff of this pdf) seems well-supported. See here and here for other commentary in the blogosphere.
My claim is not that everything that the SBVT is the truth, nor that Kerry shouldn’t be President, nor that this whole controversy really matters. My point is that Derek is setting a bad example for future Eph historians everwhere. Does he have any evidence that the SBVT are lying about Kerry’s service in Cambodia and his representations of that service?
Sox Diary: 8-30-04
Monday, August 30, 2004: It is time for me to make an admission that has been scaring the devil out of me for two months or more. As my faithful readers, and even a few faithless ones, might have divined, I do not much go in for the Curse of the Bambino hooey. Red Sox fans may well be sinners in the hands of an angry, vengeful, and even arbitrary God, but it is a God that allows us to our own devices.
Eph Comments
Before the semester starts in earnest, we are trying to upgrade some aspects of EphBlog. So, if you have an opinion and/or some technical expertise, we want to hear from you. Today’s issue is comments.
We hope that EphBlog will be the home to some rollicking discussion, as it was last year over topics like tips, quotes and military service. However, I, at least, find it hard to follow the discussion sometimes because the comments were not “threaded,”, i.e., there was no automatic way to figure out who was responding to what. See Derek Catsam’s ‘93 blog for an example of threaded comments.
Here are some thoughts from our genius site maintainer Eric on how threaded comments might or might not work on EphBlog.
There is a threading plug-in that I can install that should be relatively “easy” (still will require a lot of edits – thankfully I think I can do it in a test template and the database changes “shouldn’t” break anything else). With that in place, then there is nothing with MT that inherently won’t allow threading comments (it basically says that one comment has an overall parent that is the original post, but then has a secondary and closer parent that is the comment to which it is a specific response to).
The main issue with any threading solution, regardless of MT, TextPattern, WordPress, or any other CMS (content management solution/system) is that visually they need to be represented in a way that indents them (like LiveJournal). That is not a problem at all if you have a comment that gets a single response.
But when you start getting a response to that response, etc, etc – the indents quickly get out of hand and usually break the style of the page (meaning they may overlap other content, distort the page layout, or any number of other nasties on the visual side). This can happen in just a matter of two or three nested replies. LiveJournal gets around this by making them just links after that, and then you have to click on them to view more – but it is (IMO) an ugly way of doing it and is not a pleasant user experience.
That visual ugliness has been the main thing holding me up – aside from any other commitments that increasingly come up.
Another option is a discussion board – such as what I put up at http://www.etraininglog.com/forums/index.php – but even those don’t thread (very few discussion boards thread, again due to the visual side of it), and instead have a “quote” feature. We could implement a “quote” feature on ours so that there is a link with each comment that says “quote” and when it is pressed (if they have JavaScript enabled, which most people do) then it puts the text into “blockquote” tags in their reply field (this is actually something that they can do now just manually typing out those tags and copying and pasting what they want).
I definitely agree with you that perhaps the best thing to do is to post a question right to the blog and get responses. It is very much possible that someone may know an easier/better way to do it, or it is also arguably possible that nobody even cares if they are threaded or not.
This is, of course, tied into our choice of Movable Type as a blogging platform. My first choice would be to do all of this at WSO, but they lack the capability (I think) for multiple authors.
So, does anyone have any insights on how to make the comments capabilities of EphBlog more useful and conducive to good conversation?
Cumbersome
Libertarians, like John Phillips ‘02, sometimes say the darndest things!
It’s 4 am in Paris and I can’t sleep because I hate the progressive income tax. I just do. The very idea gnaws at me like an unfriendly rat or a cumbersome girlfriend.
Another Eph who needs to read more EphBlog! I wonder what sort of metaphors the unnamed girlfriend might come up with for Phillips . . . Just asking!
Mean (non-Eph) Girls
Luis Taboada ‘02 is having girl problems.
I guess I just wish girls would be upfront about things. I wish they would just say something along the lines of “I never want to talk to you/see you ever again” rather than say “lets hang out again” or “I hope we can be friends” when they don’t mean it. I know it would probably suck a lot to hear that at first but in the end, it saves you from feeling pathetic later on when you actually try to be friends with these girls and you get no response.
Another example of why more people should listen to advice from EphBlog. Of course, I got the whole “let’s be friends” schpiel from my lovely wife on several occasions (and had to ask her out 4 (!) times to get a first date), so Luis should hang in there.
Ephmail Invites
DeWitt Clinton ‘97 kindly offers Gmail invites to Ephs and others.
And so does Stephen O’Grady ‘97.
Sox Diary: 8-29-04
Sunday, August 29, 2004: Six in a row, twelve of thirteen, fifteen of eighteen, eighteen of the last twenty-two. Sometimes numbers can be eloquent in their simple explication of complex reality. I am not certain that I am thrilled about tomorrow’s off day, but I do know that as well as we have been playing, it is all prelude to the next couple of weeks. The Wild Card is a dogfight right now, as the Angels, A’s and Rangers are playing nearly as well as we are. We get a shot at all of those teams in our next three series, and this is when it is essential to gain ground each series. We can effectively eliminate each of them as a serious contender if we win each of these series. Right now we have a game-and-a-half lead on Anaheim.
Sox Diary: 8-28-04
Saturday, August 28, 2004: I am setting myself up for an enormous, crashing fall by being as stoked about the Sox as I have been since the April evisceration of the Yankees. Last night they continued their hot streak (10 of 11 and counting) by beating the Tigers 5-3. Derek Lowe went eight innings, a season high, and gave up three runs on the way to the victory. He has now only lost once in his last six appearances, and many, including The Globe’s Bob Hohler, are speculating that Nomar’s trade helped him more than anyone by improving the infield defense and thus helping the sinkerballer’s cause. Obviously it is impossible to prove whether or not this is so. I believed that Lowe would right things in the second half of the season anyway, but if he is more confident in the defense, and that helps explain his recent performances, there will be no complaints from this corner.
Farley ‘03 Update
Derek Catsam ‘93 has an update on Scott Farley’s ‘03 chances of making the Patriots over at his other blog. He cites a Boston Globe article that is this week-end’s must Eph reading.
That’s because Scott Farley, who grew up in Williamstown and played for his father at Division 3 Williams College, is trying to become the lone Massachusetts native to make the Patriots roster. The odds are stacked against him — Ravens offensive tackle Ethan Brooks is the only other Williams graduate on an NFL roster. (Of course, it could help that Patriots owner Robert Kraft is an Eph.)
Really? I know that Jon Kraft ‘86 (second in command of the Kraft family empire and current trustee) is an Eph along with Josh ‘89. Sally ‘79 and Kathy ‘82 also seem like possible relatives, but I don’t know that for sure.
But the only Kraft listed in the directory of Bob’s vintage is Richard M. Kraft, Jr. ‘52. I could see this as Bob’s brother, but is it the same person? Is the alumni directory wrong?
Sox Diary: 8-27-04
Friday, August 27, 2004: For all of the sturm and drang, the 2004 Red Sox are two games ahead of the pace set by their much more lovable (at least knowing what we do now about the season) 2003 forebears. That is a remarkable fact, and one trumpeted pretty clearly in the Globe today. Dan Shaughnessy wrote a fairly gushing piece, yet another example of the kinder, gentler Curly Headed Boyfriend revealing himself from his hardened soul.
Question for Lapon ‘05
Random Thoughts has a question for everyone’s favorite angry WSO blogger, Gary Lapon ‘05.
But what are you doing with your anger? Are you using it as fuel for organizing? One of the easiest things to do when you’re at Williams is to (1) bitch about how hard you have it, and (2) one of the harder things is to try to fix things at Williams in a constructive manner. The harder thing yet (3) is to go into North Adams and try to help the folks there out, but to do it in a non-hierarchal, “I’m from Williams and I know what’s good for you” kinda way. The hardest thing (4) probably is to go abroad and try to help kids in sweatshops who are lucky to make $20 on average, a month, or kids who are fighting their governments’ wars.
…
And yeah, I know that we never talk about class at Williams. Why should we when 60% of the students’ families can afford to pay $200,000 for their education? That sort of stuff just makes people uncomfortable at entry dinners. And you wouldn’t want to disturb someone while they were eating . . . that would be downright impolite.
No word yet on whether Random Thoughts will be in NYC next week.
Fridge Cleaning
Karen Lichtman ‘02 has a hilarious post on what happens when a refrigerator breaks for several weeks when no one is around to notice.
The next day I called the Simmons and explained the problem. Yes, the fridge light was on, indicating that it had power. No, it wasn’t making any noise or trying to cool down. They were sure it could be fixed. “Are you sure you want to fix it?” I asked. “I mean, it smells really bad.” The mom replied: “Why does it smell?”
WHY DOES IT SMELL? She clearly had NO IDEA of the MAGNITUDE of the problem!
“WELL THEN, you’ll JUST HAVE to CLEAN IT OUT,” she ordered. This is a woman who would die from smelling one whiff my fridge. If it were her fridge, she would have her maid clean it. Unfortunately, in the present situation, I was her maid.
Read the whole thing. It is probably the funniest WSO post of the summer.
Note from Rahill ‘88
Have you e-mailed an Eph serving in harms way yet? Well, you really should. JR Rahill ‘88, call sign Wily, is flying F-16’s in Iraq. He writes:
We’ve been very busy over here, 24/7 ops, lots of fighting, our job is to support the marines, army, Iraqi Guard and coalition forces on the ground. Can’t wait to get home, miss my wife and boys a lot.
…
I’ve got a lot of respect for the marines, have worked with them a lot, those guys are hard-core. I really feel for all of the guys on the ground, they are living in some brutal conditions, hot, dirty, getting shot at all the time, fighting an elusive enemy who doesn’t like to make direct contact but mostly uses rockets, mortars, RPGs and IEDs. I’m not sure what the solution to this conflict is, but it’s got to be straightened out politically, and we’ve got to get the security situation in hand before we can hand it off and get out of there.
JR, aka Wily
You can e-mail JR at john.rahill _at_ auab.aorcentaf.af.mil. If you haven’t yet, why not?
Sox Diary: 8-25-04
Wednesday, August 25, 2004: Within any season there are dozens, hundreds of little plots and subplots to occupy the most fervid fan’s waking hours. The Red Sox seem to have more of these petit dramas in any given year than most teams.
Appendix
Here’s some helpful advice, especially for those between the ages of 10 and 30.
If you have a stomachache that’s been hanging around for a while, and it doesn’t feel any better after you’ve been to the bathroom, feel around your stomach. If there’s a small region of tenderness about 24 hours or so after the pain or discomfort started, go get it checked out by a doctor. It may be appendicitis, and that’s not something you want to wait on dealing with.
Trust me on this, I just got back from the hospital yesterday afternoon after going in on Sunday evening, and I caught it early. Chances are that if it is appendicitis, you’ll end up having surgery sooner or later, but if you wait, it’s much more likely that they’ll have to cut you open, rather than doing it laparoscopically.
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