[1[2author
Another off-topic post*, this one about communication with a corporation. This corporation currently has a campaign entitled, "We're listening." It is intended, I suppose to convince the customers that they are listening.
As it happened, I had a little problem with one of their accounting procedures, and so I was taken in by the slogan, and tried to tell them about the problem. Here is the conversation, stripped down to its essence.
[3chase-customer [2author I am having difficulty because of one of your accounting procedures. (Description of procedure.)]]
[3chase [2charlotte We understand your frustration. Here is how it works. (How the procedure is supposed to work.)]]
[3chase-customer [2author I don't feel listened to. I would be very happy if your procedure worked the way you describe it. But it actually works like this. (Description of procedure.)]]
[3chase [2josue We understand your frustration. Here is how it works. (How the procedure is supposed to work.)]]
[3chase-customer [2author You aren't listening. I would be very happy if your procedure worked the way [2charlotte] and [2josue] describe it. But it actually works like this. (Description of procedure.) I will have to minimize my use of your service.]]
[3chase [2mark We appreciate your business. We would have loved nothing better than to satisfy you with our replies. We are sorry you are going to minimize your use of our service, and hope you will reconsider. If you have any further questions, please contact us.]]
The ball is in my court again, but I think that I will just retire from the field. I have lost this volley. The corporation has lost some business. How could it have the slogan, "we're listening," while not listening? Of course, I wasn't listening either, in the sense of believing what they said. I prefer to believe what I see them actually doing.
For the record, the accounting procedure actually works the way I described it (to a customer's disadvantage) and not the way the corporation describes it (which would be to the customer's advantage).
Neither side has truly communicated to the other. Nothing will change, and the customer confusion will continue. Neither side changed its position. This is confusion without compromise.
* Inspired by Myrna's post-the-first and post-the-second about another corporation which didn't communicate well.
]]
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Contrast without contempt
[1[2author
Or, to put it a different way, "I will stop calling you a sinner, if you will stop calling me stupid." Is it possible for people whose beliefs differ to understand one another without expressing some kind of contempt?
Here is an attempt at comparing and contrasting secular humanism (SH) with the church to which I belong, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). I trust that these acronyms will not be too invasive in the prose, and I will use a lower-case version so that it looks less like shouting. I did resist the temptation to use a longer acronym with "belief system" after each of the names. Nevertheless, it is indeed the respective belief systems that I am comparing and contrasting.
A belief system is an entity in World Three*, so alternating paragraphs will be enclosed in special brackets to indicate the world, and which belief system is speaking**. The speeches are entirely of my making and do not necessarily represent the official doctrine*** of either belief system. This is personal, as indicated formally by the bracketing of the entire post as such.
[3sh This life is an accident. The species homo sapiens is the product of a long evolutionary process. Our mind is an illusion, a story we each tell ourselves. No superior beings care what happens to the human race and we must take care of the world ourselves. Many years ago, we invented gods and religions as explanations for the world around us.]
[3lds This life is a test. We are beings with a dual nature. Our spirits are literally children of our Heavenly Father. He created our bodies, starting with Adam and Eve. Our mind awakens as our body's brain matures, but memories of pre-mortal life are veiled from us. We are co-eternal with God, who created the world for us and cares about it and us.]
The tension is already very thick. These are very different belief systems. Continuing, looking for commonality.
[3sh Our body will eventually die. Since our mind is nothing separate from our brain which also dies, we will each cease to exist, and the elements of our body will eventually return to the earth. We will continue to live on in the minds of those who cared about us until they also cease to exist. Some very famous people will be remembered longer.]
[3lds Our body will eventually die. Our spirit will carry our memories into another world, and the elements of our body will eventually return to the earth. We will continue to live on in the minds of those who cared about us. Some very famous people will be remembered longer. Eventually every person will be remembered and resurrected.]
There is quite a lot in common, with regards to death, but an enormous difference in what it means to the individual.
[3sh We are aware that there are misguided people who believe in [3lds]. It is sad that they are so deluded, and we need to present the concepts of [3sh] to them to free them from their slavery to false ideas about how the world really is.]
[3lds We are aware that there are people who believe in [3sh]. If they are willing to listen, we should teach them about [3lds] and testify to them of its truth, so that they can rejoice with us in the knowledge of how the world really is.]
I am hoping to avoid contempt. Some supporters of [3sh] do exhibit a great deal of contempt for believers in religion, so I have included a bit of that bias (with the concept of "delusion"). In fairness, there are also supporters of [3lds] who feel contempt for supporters of [3sh] but I do not, and this is personal.
The next point is really a sideline, exploring one step further this awareness by one group of people, the supporters of one belief system, of the other group who support the other belief system.
[3sh Those of us who care about others' beliefs can only convince these people before they die, and we must insist that they not indoctrinate children because that is unfair to the children and to us, making it harder for us to convince them all.]
[3lds We respect the right of these people to believe as they wish. After they die, they will understand that their belief system was incorrect, and we will continue to minister to them until they accept the Savior, which, ultimately, each one will.]
The difference here is quite large, due to an inherent asymmetry**** having to do with whether or not the belief system includes a belief in life after death.
Finally, let's consider how each belief system determines truth.
[3sh Science is a relatively recent invention which allows us to learn what is true about the world around us. We develop theories and test them with observations made of the real world. We depend upon peer review to ensure that we have a coherent story to tell others. We believe peer-reviewed research in areas we have not studied personally. We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish in such a short time. There are some questions to which our method does not apply.]
[3lds Everything which is true, including observations of science, is a part of our belief system. Direct revelation from God is the most sure and certain way to know what is true. Each of us knows by direct revelation to us that God has selected certain men to speak for all of us, we believe that they receive revelation from God, and we believe what they say. We believe all that God has revealed and we expect continuing revelation. Not all subjects have been addressed yet by them, so we must be patient.]
If I have correctly characterized the two belief systems, though they use quite different methods to get at the truth, both require faith, in the sense of needing to believe authorities.
This is hardly a conclusion, for there is still much exploration to do. The blog format allows me to try out different ideas and different presentation methods, and hopefully benefit from feedback.
All feedback is welcome. Please be aware that each supporter of either of these belief systems is a flesh-and-blood human being with feelings, who, however odd it may seem to those on the other side of the controversy, does sincerely hold these beliefs to be true and perhaps even self-evident. Please avoid all ad hominem attacks in public comments.
I am particularly soliciting feedback concerning errors in the speeches that I have put into the mouths** of the two belief systems. These are only valuable to the extent that they are accurate. If you are a believer in one of these systems and feel that I have misrepresented or over-simplified your belief, please let me know, either by comment, Google+ post, private message, or email. Thank you in advance.
In conclusion, in this post, I have done my best to produce, at an overview level of detail, an accurate and fair comparison and contrast without contempt.
* For an explanation of worlds one, two, and three, please see a previous post in this blog, "Context without content."
** Strictly speaking, world three entities do not speak, but world two entities (i.e. people) speak on their behalf. Each speech is in my own voice, representing the world three entity as I understand it.
*** The official doctrines of the LDS church can be found by searching on lds.org. SH does not have an organization per se, at least so far as I am aware.
**** In the linked post, LDS is denoted M, and SH is denoted S. The other abbreviations are C for mainstream christianity, and R for groups that believe in reincarnation.
]]
Or, to put it a different way, "I will stop calling you a sinner, if you will stop calling me stupid." Is it possible for people whose beliefs differ to understand one another without expressing some kind of contempt?
Here is an attempt at comparing and contrasting secular humanism (SH) with the church to which I belong, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). I trust that these acronyms will not be too invasive in the prose, and I will use a lower-case version so that it looks less like shouting. I did resist the temptation to use a longer acronym with "belief system" after each of the names. Nevertheless, it is indeed the respective belief systems that I am comparing and contrasting.
A belief system is an entity in World Three*, so alternating paragraphs will be enclosed in special brackets to indicate the world, and which belief system is speaking**. The speeches are entirely of my making and do not necessarily represent the official doctrine*** of either belief system. This is personal, as indicated formally by the bracketing of the entire post as such.
[3sh This life is an accident. The species homo sapiens is the product of a long evolutionary process. Our mind is an illusion, a story we each tell ourselves. No superior beings care what happens to the human race and we must take care of the world ourselves. Many years ago, we invented gods and religions as explanations for the world around us.]
[3lds This life is a test. We are beings with a dual nature. Our spirits are literally children of our Heavenly Father. He created our bodies, starting with Adam and Eve. Our mind awakens as our body's brain matures, but memories of pre-mortal life are veiled from us. We are co-eternal with God, who created the world for us and cares about it and us.]
The tension is already very thick. These are very different belief systems. Continuing, looking for commonality.
[3sh Our body will eventually die. Since our mind is nothing separate from our brain which also dies, we will each cease to exist, and the elements of our body will eventually return to the earth. We will continue to live on in the minds of those who cared about us until they also cease to exist. Some very famous people will be remembered longer.]
[3lds Our body will eventually die. Our spirit will carry our memories into another world, and the elements of our body will eventually return to the earth. We will continue to live on in the minds of those who cared about us. Some very famous people will be remembered longer. Eventually every person will be remembered and resurrected.]
There is quite a lot in common, with regards to death, but an enormous difference in what it means to the individual.
[3sh We are aware that there are misguided people who believe in [3lds]. It is sad that they are so deluded, and we need to present the concepts of [3sh] to them to free them from their slavery to false ideas about how the world really is.]
[3lds We are aware that there are people who believe in [3sh]. If they are willing to listen, we should teach them about [3lds] and testify to them of its truth, so that they can rejoice with us in the knowledge of how the world really is.]
I am hoping to avoid contempt. Some supporters of [3sh] do exhibit a great deal of contempt for believers in religion, so I have included a bit of that bias (with the concept of "delusion"). In fairness, there are also supporters of [3lds] who feel contempt for supporters of [3sh] but I do not, and this is personal.
The next point is really a sideline, exploring one step further this awareness by one group of people, the supporters of one belief system, of the other group who support the other belief system.
[3sh Those of us who care about others' beliefs can only convince these people before they die, and we must insist that they not indoctrinate children because that is unfair to the children and to us, making it harder for us to convince them all.]
[3lds We respect the right of these people to believe as they wish. After they die, they will understand that their belief system was incorrect, and we will continue to minister to them until they accept the Savior, which, ultimately, each one will.]
The difference here is quite large, due to an inherent asymmetry**** having to do with whether or not the belief system includes a belief in life after death.
Finally, let's consider how each belief system determines truth.
[3sh Science is a relatively recent invention which allows us to learn what is true about the world around us. We develop theories and test them with observations made of the real world. We depend upon peer review to ensure that we have a coherent story to tell others. We believe peer-reviewed research in areas we have not studied personally. We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish in such a short time. There are some questions to which our method does not apply.]
[3lds Everything which is true, including observations of science, is a part of our belief system. Direct revelation from God is the most sure and certain way to know what is true. Each of us knows by direct revelation to us that God has selected certain men to speak for all of us, we believe that they receive revelation from God, and we believe what they say. We believe all that God has revealed and we expect continuing revelation. Not all subjects have been addressed yet by them, so we must be patient.]
If I have correctly characterized the two belief systems, though they use quite different methods to get at the truth, both require faith, in the sense of needing to believe authorities.
This is hardly a conclusion, for there is still much exploration to do. The blog format allows me to try out different ideas and different presentation methods, and hopefully benefit from feedback.
All feedback is welcome. Please be aware that each supporter of either of these belief systems is a flesh-and-blood human being with feelings, who, however odd it may seem to those on the other side of the controversy, does sincerely hold these beliefs to be true and perhaps even self-evident. Please avoid all ad hominem attacks in public comments.
I am particularly soliciting feedback concerning errors in the speeches that I have put into the mouths** of the two belief systems. These are only valuable to the extent that they are accurate. If you are a believer in one of these systems and feel that I have misrepresented or over-simplified your belief, please let me know, either by comment, Google+ post, private message, or email. Thank you in advance.
In conclusion, in this post, I have done my best to produce, at an overview level of detail, an accurate and fair comparison and contrast without contempt.
* For an explanation of worlds one, two, and three, please see a previous post in this blog, "Context without content."
** Strictly speaking, world three entities do not speak, but world two entities (i.e. people) speak on their behalf. Each speech is in my own voice, representing the world three entity as I understand it.
*** The official doctrines of the LDS church can be found by searching on lds.org. SH does not have an organization per se, at least so far as I am aware.
**** In the linked post, LDS is denoted M, and SH is denoted S. The other abbreviations are C for mainstream christianity, and R for groups that believe in reincarnation.
]]
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Contrast without confusion
[1[2author
After quite a long hiatus, for those who are following this blog in real-time, here is the next post in the series for which I created this particular blog. Intervening posts have been off-topic.
A previous post introduced Popper's three worlds, as a technique for describing things which exist, by making distinctions between things which exist in the real world, things which exist as an individual mind, and things which have an existence of their own as it were. I will repeat here, for convenience, the paragraph of that post which gives the prescription for these distinctions.
After quite a long hiatus, for those who are following this blog in real-time, here is the next post in the series for which I created this particular blog. Intervening posts have been off-topic.
A previous post introduced Popper's three worlds, as a technique for describing things which exist, by making distinctions between things which exist in the real world, things which exist as an individual mind, and things which have an existence of their own as it were. I will repeat here, for convenience, the paragraph of that post which gives the prescription for these distinctions.
I invite you to consider using Popper's three worlds as a way to organize your thoughts about things. Is it a real, tangible object? World one. Is it [a person, or] an idea flitting through your head? World two. Is it something that, while not tangible, has a life of its own, that people talk about or to which people pledge allegiance? World three.Now, let's use this technique for making a few simple contrasts, hopefully without confusion.
An atheist is willing to admit that God exists as something which is not tangible, but which people talk about and to which many pledge allegiance. I have heard proponents of atheism claim that God exists only as a fictional character, or in the same way that an imaginary friend exists.
Let me introduce a notation to describe this:
[3atheism [1 [3God]]]
In that line, I am expressing my conception that atheism exists as an entity in world 3, and that one of its tenets is that, in world 1, there exists an entity in world 3, commonly referred to as "God."
A theist, on the other hand, contends that God exists in world 1 as a being. In the notation:
[3theism [1 [2God]]]
The difference between the two notations is quite subtle, but captures the contrast well, and, hopefully, without confusion.
The difference between the two notations is quite subtle, but captures the contrast well, and, hopefully, without confusion.
For another example, I will turn to an experience that I had while a university professor in the 1980's. One of my students, during an office visit, allowed a brief discussion about Jesus Christ, in order to refute my claim that, as a Mormon*, I was a Christian. To conclude the discussion, he indicated that the Jesus Christ that I believe in is not the same Jesus Christ that he believes in. We agreed to disagree. I have often thought of this experience, and now attempt to diagram his position.
[3christianity [1 [2Trinity (including Jesus Christ)]]]
As a main-stream Christian, he believed that Jesus Christ was a manifestation of the Trinity while in the flesh during his lifetime as a mortal being, who after his ascension became again a part of the one God which is the consubstantial unity of three parts, comprising the incomprehensible Trinity. It is easy to understand the claim that "Mormons are not Christian" because we do not believe in this conception of Jesus Christ.
[3lds [1 [2God the Father] [2Jesus Christ] [2Holy Ghost]]]
This expresses the first of the thirteen articles of faith. As a Latter-day Saint*, I believe that Jesus Christ is one member of the Godhead, who exists as a being with a glorified body of flesh and bone. The Godhead is made up of three distinct beings who are one in purpose. It is based on our belief in the existence of Jesus Christ, as a real being, that Mormons claim** to be Christian.
As a final example, let's consider the first vision of Joseph Smith, from two different points of view.
[3atheism [1 [2Joseph Smith claimed to have seen [3God the Father] [3Jesus Christ]]]]
Atheists would not deny the existence of Joseph Smith as an individual who lived in the real world, and would likely agree that he claimed to have had a vision of two (imaginary***) beings.
[3lds [1 [2Joseph Smith] saw [2God the Father] and [2Jesus Christ]]]
As a Latter-day Saint* I testify not only that Joseph Smith existed as an individual in the real world, but that in 1820 he actually saw and talked with both God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, who are individuals who exist in the real world.
This is one way we can contrast without confusion at least portions of different belief systems using a notation based on the distinctions drawn by Popper's three worlds. Confusion is removed, because each claim that something exists clearly states in which world existence is claimed.
* In other words, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
** However, we do not claim to be an offshoot of any pre-existing (that is, established before 1820) Christian faith, neither Catholic nor Protestant, but rather a restoration of the original church established by Jesus Christ Himself during his lifetime as a mortal and during the brief period (of at least forty days--see Acts 1:3) during which he taught his disciples after his resurrection.
*** The notation is quite subtle here. Notice the closing bracket for Joseph Smith is at the far right, which puts the two beings he saw into his own head (i.e. still in world 2), rather than claiming they exist separately in world 1.
** However, we do not claim to be an offshoot of any pre-existing (that is, established before 1820) Christian faith, neither Catholic nor Protestant, but rather a restoration of the original church established by Jesus Christ Himself during his lifetime as a mortal and during the brief period (of at least forty days--see Acts 1:3) during which he taught his disciples after his resurrection.
*** The notation is quite subtle here. Notice the closing bracket for Joseph Smith is at the far right, which puts the two beings he saw into his own head (i.e. still in world 2), rather than claiming they exist separately in world 1.
]]
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Contagion without containment
Normally, I do not participate in things like chain letters and email chains. But this chain seems interesting. Myrna invited me to respond to a writing interview.
I followed the chain back a bit to try to determine the rules, and possibly the origin, but didn't get very far. It appears that one answers four questions and then suggests ("tags") someone else to participate. This produces a potentially unbounded chain, actually a branching structure, because many people seem to invite more than one other person to continue the chain. Of course some branches end, either without invitation, or with non-responsive invitees.
This type of post spreads across the internet of bloggers, in a way similar to the way a contagious disease spreads. Not saying it's a bad thing, though. My participation will be difficult to find because the usual blog title of "Writing Interview" does not fit my self-imposed constraint on blog titles. So, if you've stumbled upon this, welcome to my writing interview.
What am I working on?
I am working on a "contrast without contempt" between two belief systems which I know fairly well. Proponents of each of these belief systems tend to express contempt for those of the other, so this is a bit of a touchy subject. I have not yet worked up the courage to publish the initial post for that work, but have one in draft.
Otherwise, I am enjoying writing up little experiences from my past, mostly from my professional career. I have done some things which are, as far as I can tell, unique. Other things which I describe were innovative and/or ahead of their time.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I don't know of anything else in this genre. Self-conscious, flow of consciousness, stories of an ordinary lifetime. There probably are many public diaries, and there may be one out there just like mine.
Why do I write what I do?
Like many who have answered, it is because I feel compelled by inner forces to write. To my knowledge, I don't have a large audience, as only a handful of dear friends have ever commented.
As to the little personal stories, I write so that they will not be lost when I leave the planet. I do so mainly for the benefit of my posterity.
As to the professional experiences, I think it is important that these be documented.
How does my writing process work?
I think about things for days (and nights) on end, trying to find a pair of con- words to fit as a post title. Finally it all comes together and out of me into the blogger editor, gets a brief polish and publication.
Who would I like to interview?
Elizabeth and/or her husband Cody, and Ashlyn. As both blogs are content without constraint as to titles, I hope each post will be entitled "Writing Interview" to restore the pattern.
If either or both respond, this will be my contribution to a contagion without containment.
I followed the chain back a bit to try to determine the rules, and possibly the origin, but didn't get very far. It appears that one answers four questions and then suggests ("tags") someone else to participate. This produces a potentially unbounded chain, actually a branching structure, because many people seem to invite more than one other person to continue the chain. Of course some branches end, either without invitation, or with non-responsive invitees.
This type of post spreads across the internet of bloggers, in a way similar to the way a contagious disease spreads. Not saying it's a bad thing, though. My participation will be difficult to find because the usual blog title of "Writing Interview" does not fit my self-imposed constraint on blog titles. So, if you've stumbled upon this, welcome to my writing interview.
What am I working on?
I am working on a "contrast without contempt" between two belief systems which I know fairly well. Proponents of each of these belief systems tend to express contempt for those of the other, so this is a bit of a touchy subject. I have not yet worked up the courage to publish the initial post for that work, but have one in draft.
Otherwise, I am enjoying writing up little experiences from my past, mostly from my professional career. I have done some things which are, as far as I can tell, unique. Other things which I describe were innovative and/or ahead of their time.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I don't know of anything else in this genre. Self-conscious, flow of consciousness, stories of an ordinary lifetime. There probably are many public diaries, and there may be one out there just like mine.
Why do I write what I do?
Like many who have answered, it is because I feel compelled by inner forces to write. To my knowledge, I don't have a large audience, as only a handful of dear friends have ever commented.
As to the little personal stories, I write so that they will not be lost when I leave the planet. I do so mainly for the benefit of my posterity.
As to the professional experiences, I think it is important that these be documented.
How does my writing process work?
I think about things for days (and nights) on end, trying to find a pair of con- words to fit as a post title. Finally it all comes together and out of me into the blogger editor, gets a brief polish and publication.
Who would I like to interview?
Elizabeth and/or her husband Cody, and Ashlyn. As both blogs are content without constraint as to titles, I hope each post will be entitled "Writing Interview" to restore the pattern.
If either or both respond, this will be my contribution to a contagion without containment.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Construction without commuting
This is a story about a distant past. Not so many years, really, but the software construction world was quite different forty years ago. What was innovative then is now merely commonplace. In a word, telecommuting.
In the mid 1970's, I was working in France on a project for the French statistics bureau, INSEE. One aspect of this work is described in a previous post. The project involved the creation of a system to capture all of the data collected in the French census of 1975, and was part of a larger project, with "Colibri" as its code name*. Those with an interest in the history of census taking, and a reading knowledge of French may find it fascinating to read about this time in the history of INSEE.
The system we built was very ambitious for the time, and definitely on the cutting edge. It involved a central computer, located in Lille, attached to about 50 terminals** distributed throughout France, in 17 different locations. At these terminals, over 100 employees, mostly women, worked one of two shifts a day. Their work was to type in the information collected on the millions of individual census forms.
Our work was to develop the software system to support this. The hardware was an IBM 370 mainframe computer with telecommunication channels connected to all of the terminal locations. This was managed using IBM's SNA protocol as implemented in VTAM. On top of all this, we ran the teleprocessing monitoring system which our company*** sold, MULTIFASTER. Besides necessary bits and pieces to connect everything together, our main task was to create small programs, each one of which would handle a single transaction. A transaction was basically one screenful of information coming from one of the terminals. The small program would then validate the information and store it in a database, and that was all it did. Each such small program was called, also, a transaction. Confusing, I know.
The system we developed consisted of a collection of transactions. Each transaction was initiated from one of the terminals connected to the system. There were transactions to paint input screens onto the 3270 terminal. After the operator had filled in the blank fields, she would press the transmit key. There were transactions to accept the transmissions from the terminals, validate the information and store it in the database.
We were three software engineers writing the transactions: Marcel Sellem, Raymond Hédin, and myself. We all commuted from the Paris area to Lille to do the work at the site of the central computer. The programs were prepared on punched cards (80 column cards) and given to the operators to compile.
Once the entire system was built, it went into operation, and the data entry personnel went to work. Their work lasted for several years.
We all shifted our attention to other projects, but it remained my job to maintain the system. Every software system has bugs, and these needed to be addressed. We also had contractual limits on how much time the computer spent working on each transaction, so there was some tuning to be done as well.
At first, I did the necessary maintenance work by commuting to Lille. But then, suddenly, this innovative thought hit me: I could create a transaction which would let me edit the programs of the system. The system was a collection of loosely-coupled transactions. All that I had to do was add a new one. I did this.
The editor, due to the characteristics of the 3270 terminal had to be extremely simple. Each screen showed me three lines at a time from the program file on which I was working. The middle line could be edited. Above and below it were two lines of context: the line before and the line after the one that I could change.
Due to a limitation**** of the editing software behind the scenes, I had to work through the file in order from top to bottom. Each time that I deleted a line, edited a line, or inserted a line, I would press the transmit key, and the information would be sent to the central computer where the actual editing of the file was performed.
Once I had made all of the changes to the file, I used the same system to create a new file, written in job control language (JCL), which would direct the compilation of the modified program. I would then phone an operator in Lille, tell them where the file of JCL was located, and have them run it. Running it would compile the modified program file. If all of that was successful, I could cause the modified program to go into service.
I built all of this while at Lille doing the maintenance work that had taken me there. Once it was built, I no longer needed to commute! Instead, I would go to the INSEE head office, nearby in Paris, log in to the system from a terminal they had there, and make the needed changes.
Since the new editing transactions were part of the system, I could also modify them remotely! Of course, this would have to be done very carefully, because if I were to break the editing transactions, I would have to go all the way to Lille to fix them.
This is how I was able to do software construction without commuting, back in the 1970's.
* COLIBRI is an acronym from the French COdification en LIgne des Bulletins du Recensement Individuels roughly translated as "encoding on-line of the individual forms of the census."
** These were IBM 3270 terminals, sometimes called "green screens" because they were monochromatic black and green screens.
*** The company for which I worked was named CAP Sogeti Logiciel, and at the time, I thought it was a small company. Turns out it was a branch of one of the largest software organizations in Europe.
**** The editing software was not intended for interactive use. So calling this one of its limitations is really unfair. It was actually a feature of the editing software to allow user-supplied code to be executed as each line was considered. I took advantage of that feature to paint a new screen onto the 3270 terminal, and the editor waited until the user responded to that with a command to do some edits before continuing on to the next line.
In the mid 1970's, I was working in France on a project for the French statistics bureau, INSEE. One aspect of this work is described in a previous post. The project involved the creation of a system to capture all of the data collected in the French census of 1975, and was part of a larger project, with "Colibri" as its code name*. Those with an interest in the history of census taking, and a reading knowledge of French may find it fascinating to read about this time in the history of INSEE.
The system we built was very ambitious for the time, and definitely on the cutting edge. It involved a central computer, located in Lille, attached to about 50 terminals** distributed throughout France, in 17 different locations. At these terminals, over 100 employees, mostly women, worked one of two shifts a day. Their work was to type in the information collected on the millions of individual census forms.
Our work was to develop the software system to support this. The hardware was an IBM 370 mainframe computer with telecommunication channels connected to all of the terminal locations. This was managed using IBM's SNA protocol as implemented in VTAM. On top of all this, we ran the teleprocessing monitoring system which our company*** sold, MULTIFASTER. Besides necessary bits and pieces to connect everything together, our main task was to create small programs, each one of which would handle a single transaction. A transaction was basically one screenful of information coming from one of the terminals. The small program would then validate the information and store it in a database, and that was all it did. Each such small program was called, also, a transaction. Confusing, I know.
The system we developed consisted of a collection of transactions. Each transaction was initiated from one of the terminals connected to the system. There were transactions to paint input screens onto the 3270 terminal. After the operator had filled in the blank fields, she would press the transmit key. There were transactions to accept the transmissions from the terminals, validate the information and store it in the database.
We were three software engineers writing the transactions: Marcel Sellem, Raymond Hédin, and myself. We all commuted from the Paris area to Lille to do the work at the site of the central computer. The programs were prepared on punched cards (80 column cards) and given to the operators to compile.
Once the entire system was built, it went into operation, and the data entry personnel went to work. Their work lasted for several years.
We all shifted our attention to other projects, but it remained my job to maintain the system. Every software system has bugs, and these needed to be addressed. We also had contractual limits on how much time the computer spent working on each transaction, so there was some tuning to be done as well.
At first, I did the necessary maintenance work by commuting to Lille. But then, suddenly, this innovative thought hit me: I could create a transaction which would let me edit the programs of the system. The system was a collection of loosely-coupled transactions. All that I had to do was add a new one. I did this.
The editor, due to the characteristics of the 3270 terminal had to be extremely simple. Each screen showed me three lines at a time from the program file on which I was working. The middle line could be edited. Above and below it were two lines of context: the line before and the line after the one that I could change.
Due to a limitation**** of the editing software behind the scenes, I had to work through the file in order from top to bottom. Each time that I deleted a line, edited a line, or inserted a line, I would press the transmit key, and the information would be sent to the central computer where the actual editing of the file was performed.
Once I had made all of the changes to the file, I used the same system to create a new file, written in job control language (JCL), which would direct the compilation of the modified program. I would then phone an operator in Lille, tell them where the file of JCL was located, and have them run it. Running it would compile the modified program file. If all of that was successful, I could cause the modified program to go into service.
I built all of this while at Lille doing the maintenance work that had taken me there. Once it was built, I no longer needed to commute! Instead, I would go to the INSEE head office, nearby in Paris, log in to the system from a terminal they had there, and make the needed changes.
Since the new editing transactions were part of the system, I could also modify them remotely! Of course, this would have to be done very carefully, because if I were to break the editing transactions, I would have to go all the way to Lille to fix them.
This is how I was able to do software construction without commuting, back in the 1970's.
* COLIBRI is an acronym from the French COdification en LIgne des Bulletins du Recensement Individuels roughly translated as "encoding on-line of the individual forms of the census."
** These were IBM 3270 terminals, sometimes called "green screens" because they were monochromatic black and green screens.
*** The company for which I worked was named CAP Sogeti Logiciel, and at the time, I thought it was a small company. Turns out it was a branch of one of the largest software organizations in Europe.
**** The editing software was not intended for interactive use. So calling this one of its limitations is really unfair. It was actually a feature of the editing software to allow user-supplied code to be executed as each line was considered. I took advantage of that feature to paint a new screen onto the 3270 terminal, and the editor waited until the user responded to that with a command to do some edits before continuing on to the next line.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Con without content
or, what this blog will be if I don't continue writing...
Anyone who was following my previous blogging attempt, which lasted for several years, will have given a passing thought to what may have happened. It ended rather abruptly, with a post which included, "...surgery... This is considered routine." Which could lead one to wonder just how routine the outcome had been.
Everything was fine, in that eye, at least, and the right eye (this time) was similarly treated in January 2014, with very good results.
Just had to write a little today, lest this blog be a con, without content.
Anyone who was following my previous blogging attempt, which lasted for several years, will have given a passing thought to what may have happened. It ended rather abruptly, with a post which included, "...surgery... This is considered routine." Which could lead one to wonder just how routine the outcome had been.
Everything was fine, in that eye, at least, and the right eye (this time) was similarly treated in January 2014, with very good results.
Just had to write a little today, lest this blog be a con, without content.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Contrivance without confluence
The previous contrivance (without conflation) showed how to count only user-viewed visits to a web page, depending on the user-agent (i.e. browser) to load an image each time the page is viewed. This is good because that contrivance no longer counts requests for the page from robots and web crawler software, as it did in its first incarnation.
However, much information is lost as the count is maintained, because a mere tally is a stark abstraction of the visit information. Left out are the date of the visit, the user's IP address, the kind of browser used, the referring page, etc. etc.
In this contrivance, we'll show one way of capturing the date information. This is so the flow of all counts do not run together into a single number. It is as if each day's tally is a separate river flowing into the month, flowing into the year*.
The idea is to create a folder for each year, month, and day on which a visit occurs, and to keep a separate tally for each date.
Here is a CGI script to accomplish the task.
As before, line 1 lets the web server know that a bash shell should interpret this script, line 2 informs the web server (which lets the browser know) that an image will be returned, and line 3 signals the end of HTTP headers.
Line 4 obtains the system date from the machine running the web server, in the format YYYY/MM/DD. This is convenient, as the separating slash also has meaning for the file system, indicating nested folders. Note that this machine might be in a different time zone than the web master, and very often than the visitors. This scheme abstracts out the time of the visit, along with all of the other information available to the script.
Lines 5 and 8-10 create the folder for the year, if it doesn't already exist.
Lines 6 and 11-13 create the folder for the month, if necessary.
Lines 7 and 14-16 create the folder for the day, if necessary.
Line 17 tallies the count.
Line 18 as before provides the actual image data to be returned to the web server, which will pass it along to the user's browser.
To use this script you would upload it to the cgi-bin folder of the public html folder of your provider's web server machine. Supposing you named it tallywithdate.cgi any request from an image tag in one of your web pages for
Now, the question you are going to ask is, "Why do it this way, rather than using a relational database?" Very good question. In my case, it was to avoid setting up all of the machinery required. All that I needed was the date information, and the publisher of the website was content to have the date be relative to the U.S. central time zone (where the web server machine is located).
Another reason for using this technique is that, for this web site, I did not need PHP, because all of the web pages are generated off-line, and uploaded periodically, as a collection of hundreds of HTML pages. So, I took it as a challenge to implement the few pieces that required some server-side logic using only the Bash shell.
A word about disk space requirements. On the machine that hosts the web site in question, the file system uses blocks of 4K (4096 bytes). So one of these will be required for each year, month, day, and tallies file. Since the tallies file uses base one, it will require an additional 4K block when the tally exceeds 4096, and so on. I don't know how this would compare to a relational database solution. There, each count event would require at least 10 or 12 bytes for the record to contain the count and the system date. The exact comparison will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Another useful piece of information that is available to the script is the referring page. That information consists of the entire URL of the page containing the tally (image) request. That could be quite large. As an alternative, the pages of the web site in question are partitioned into equivalence classes, and each class of page is assigned a simple identifier. Then the following script (replacing only the penultimate line of the first script) records the tallies in a separate file for each class of web page.
There you have it. Instead of a tally going into a file named tallies, it will go into a file whose name is provided as the query string of the image URL. For example, a request from one of your (fabulous) web pages that looked like this
The query string (portion of the image URL following the question mark) is sanitized (line 17) by accepting only the first occurrence of an identifier of letters and digits, starting with a letter. If such an identifier is present in the query string, then it is used as a file name (lines 18-20) to collect the tallies.
Scripts to display the count of page views for any given date, or date range, and for any class of web page are all left as exercises for the reader.
* So, with this iteration of the contrivance, we leave behind the confluence of all the counts into a single number. Hence the contrived title of this post: this is a contrivance without confluence.
[Added May 31] If you would like to limit the class names to those in a particular list of identifiers, place those identifiers in a file named, say eclassids, and add this line of code just before the last if of the script.
[Added Jan 10, 2021] Note that lines 8-16 could be replaced by this single line of code:
However, much information is lost as the count is maintained, because a mere tally is a stark abstraction of the visit information. Left out are the date of the visit, the user's IP address, the kind of browser used, the referring page, etc. etc.
In this contrivance, we'll show one way of capturing the date information. This is so the flow of all counts do not run together into a single number. It is as if each day's tally is a separate river flowing into the month, flowing into the year*.
The idea is to create a folder for each year, month, and day on which a visit occurs, and to keep a separate tally for each date.
Here is a CGI script to accomplish the task.
#!/bin/bash echo "Content-type: image/gif" echo DATE=`date +%Y/%m/%d` FOLDER_Y=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1` FOLDER_M=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1-2` FOLDER_D=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1-3` if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_Y" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_Y fi if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_M" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_M fi if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_D" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_D fi echo -n 1 >>$FOLDER_D/tallies cat 1x1.gif
As before, line 1 lets the web server know that a bash shell should interpret this script, line 2 informs the web server (which lets the browser know) that an image will be returned, and line 3 signals the end of HTTP headers.
Line 4 obtains the system date from the machine running the web server, in the format YYYY/MM/DD. This is convenient, as the separating slash also has meaning for the file system, indicating nested folders. Note that this machine might be in a different time zone than the web master, and very often than the visitors. This scheme abstracts out the time of the visit, along with all of the other information available to the script.
Lines 5 and 8-10 create the folder for the year, if it doesn't already exist.
Lines 6 and 11-13 create the folder for the month, if necessary.
Lines 7 and 14-16 create the folder for the day, if necessary.
Line 17 tallies the count.
Line 18 as before provides the actual image data to be returned to the web server, which will pass it along to the user's browser.
To use this script you would upload it to the cgi-bin folder of the public html folder of your provider's web server machine. Supposing you named it tallywithdate.cgi any request from an image tag in one of your web pages for
[your domain]/cgi-bin/tallywithdate.cgiwould result in a view of that page receiving one tally or count.
Now, the question you are going to ask is, "Why do it this way, rather than using a relational database?" Very good question. In my case, it was to avoid setting up all of the machinery required. All that I needed was the date information, and the publisher of the website was content to have the date be relative to the U.S. central time zone (where the web server machine is located).
Another reason for using this technique is that, for this web site, I did not need PHP, because all of the web pages are generated off-line, and uploaded periodically, as a collection of hundreds of HTML pages. So, I took it as a challenge to implement the few pieces that required some server-side logic using only the Bash shell.
A word about disk space requirements. On the machine that hosts the web site in question, the file system uses blocks of 4K (4096 bytes). So one of these will be required for each year, month, day, and tallies file. Since the tallies file uses base one, it will require an additional 4K block when the tally exceeds 4096, and so on. I don't know how this would compare to a relational database solution. There, each count event would require at least 10 or 12 bytes for the record to contain the count and the system date. The exact comparison will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Another useful piece of information that is available to the script is the referring page. That information consists of the entire URL of the page containing the tally (image) request. That could be quite large. As an alternative, the pages of the web site in question are partitioned into equivalence classes, and each class of page is assigned a simple identifier. Then the following script (replacing only the penultimate line of the first script) records the tallies in a separate file for each class of web page.
#!/bin/bash echo "Content-type: image/gif" echo DATE=`date +%Y/%m/%d` FOLDER_Y=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1` FOLDER_M=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1-2` FOLDER_D=../../counters/`echo $DATE | cut -d / -f 1-3` if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_Y" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_Y fi if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_M" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_M fi if [ ! -d "$FOLDER_D" ]; then mkdir $FOLDER_D fi TALLIES=`echo $QUERY_STRING | grep -o '[a-zA-Z][0-9a-zA-Z]*'` if [ -n "$TALLIES" ]; then echo -n 1 >>$FOLDER_D/$TALLIES fi cat 1x1.gif
There you have it. Instead of a tally going into a file named tallies, it will go into a file whose name is provided as the query string of the image URL. For example, a request from one of your (fabulous) web pages that looked like this
[your domain]/cgi-bin/tallywithdate.cgi?fabulouswould result in a tally to the file named fabulous in the folder for the current (server) date.
The query string (portion of the image URL following the question mark) is sanitized (line 17) by accepting only the first occurrence of an identifier of letters and digits, starting with a letter. If such an identifier is present in the query string, then it is used as a file name (lines 18-20) to collect the tallies.
Scripts to display the count of page views for any given date, or date range, and for any class of web page are all left as exercises for the reader.
* So, with this iteration of the contrivance, we leave behind the confluence of all the counts into a single number. Hence the contrived title of this post: this is a contrivance without confluence.
[Added May 31] If you would like to limit the class names to those in a particular list of identifiers, place those identifiers in a file named, say eclassids, and add this line of code just before the last if of the script.
TALLIES=`grep "^$TALLIES$" ../../counters/eclassids | head -1`
[Added Jan 10, 2021] Note that lines 8-16 could be replaced by this single line of code:
mkdir -p $FOLDER_DThe -p flag will cause the mkdir command to create all the directories which don't already exist without giving any error messages. This would include the parent directories for a new month and year.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Contrivance without conflation
In a previous post, "Contrivance without conclusion," I presented a device to count web page views. As noted in the post, that contrivance really counts web page requests. As such, it would also count requests from web crawlers used by search engines, and other* cases where a human being has not actually viewed the page.
The trick commonly used to count only views of a web page is to embed in the page an image containing the number of views. The technique is sometimes called a web bug. When the page is requested by a user-operated browser, the browser normally** will also request all embedded images so that they can be displayed in their proper places on the page.
There are dozens of web sites which offer free counters of this kind. However, if you choose to use one of these you will be bound by their terms and conditions, and subject to them discontinuing their service, which can occur without notice.
So, why not make your own? Here is a modification of the earlier contrivance that accomplishes this.
Line 1 as before, tells the web server that this file is a program written in the "bash" language.
Line 2 instructs the web server to send the user agent an HTTP header informing it of the type of content, in this case, a GIF image.
Line 3 as before is a blank line that signals the end of HTTP headers, so that all that follows will be sent to the user agent as the actual content produced by this CGI script (which happens only at line 15, but that is getting ahead of the story).
Line 4 as before increments the counter.
Line 5 assigns the visitor count as the value of the shell variable named SUM. As a running example, let's assume the value is 1957.
Line 6 assigns the length of the visitor count number (i.e. the number of digits it contains) to the shell variable named LEN. For our running example, this will be 4.
Line 7 assigns an initial value to the shell variable named IMG, the string "H/" followed by the actual length, "H/4" in our running example.
Line 8 begins a loop which, in our running example, will be used 4 times, since the command `seq 1 4` will return 1 2 3 4.
Line 9 open brackets the lines which will be repeated.
Line 10 appends a space character and the letter S to the IMG variable.
Line 11 appends a space character, then "P/" and, a number (the position, zero-based). For our running example, the numbers will be 3 2 1 0, as computed by having the command bc evaluate each of 4-1, 4-2, etc.
Line 12 appends a space character, then a digit from the number to be displayed. In our running example, these digits will be1 9 5 7 7 5 9 1 (because we are looking at them in reverse order).
Line 13 close brackets the lines which were to be repeated.
Line 14 changes the current directory to a folder named "counters" (which must be created--see below) which is out of the way of the files which can be served by the web server. This directory or folder must contain image fragments, which are used by the final line.
Line 15 concatenates many bits and pieces, which are each binary files. When all strung together, and ending with the contents of the binary file named T, this will produce a valid GIF file which will be the number from the web page visitor count.
In our running example, the value stored in the IMG variable at the end of the loop will be
H/4 S P/3 7 S P/2 5 S P/1 9 S P/0 1
and the complete command of line 15 would thus be
cat H/4 S P/3 7 S P/2 5 S P/1 9 S P/0 1 T
which will output the fourteen fragments--named H/4, S, P/3, 7, etc. and finally, the fragment named T--to the web server (which passes this content along to the user agent (the browser)).
To make this work, you will need to upload the file to the cgi-bin folder in the public html file provided by your web hosting company, naming it, say, "tallyimage.cgi". Once you have done this, anyone who visits the page at
You will also need to download the image fragments from the file counters.zip (which is also mentioned/used in a web page entitled "Image generation in DataPerfect") and unzip this file into a new folder named "counters" (for that is the name mentioned in line 14) in the folder containing the public html file provided by your web hosting company.
As a mnemonic, the 32 fragment names are
folder H for "header" (containing fragments named 1, 2, 3, ... 9, X(not used here))
S for "separator"
folder P for "position" (zero-based, containing fragments named 0, 1, 2, ... 9)
9 for the digit nine, etc.
T for "terminator"
Suppose you don't want to display the count on a web page, but you want to just count it as having been viewed? In this case, here is a much simpler CGI script to accomplish the task.
The first four lines are identical to the previous CGI script.
Line 5 copies a file named 1x1.gif to the the web server, which passes it along to the user agent as the requested image. This file, as its name suggests, is a small one by one pixel GIF image, which (though its name does not suggest this) is transparent, so it can be included somewhere on a page without disruption of the visual appearance of the page.
The two contrivances live:
http://sanbachs.net/tallypagewithimage.html
http://sanbachs.net/tallythispage.html
These are normal web pages, which call for and display the contrivance images. On the second page, I have enlarged the image and surrounded it will a border so that you can see where it is. This will allow you to download a 1x1.gif file more easily.
Note that these web pages (and those of the previous post) all share the same "tallies" file, and thus share a page view counter.
As a modification to the previous "contrivance without conclusion," this is a contrivance without conflation of the two kinds of visits: the ones from a genuine request to view a page, and the ones from web crawlers and other user agents which do not request the images on the page.
* Technically, any software which makes a request for a web page is called a User Agent.
** A user can disable the automatic display of images on a web page, unfortunately, so this trick will miss counting such page views.
The trick commonly used to count only views of a web page is to embed in the page an image containing the number of views. The technique is sometimes called a web bug. When the page is requested by a user-operated browser, the browser normally** will also request all embedded images so that they can be displayed in their proper places on the page.
There are dozens of web sites which offer free counters of this kind. However, if you choose to use one of these you will be bound by their terms and conditions, and subject to them discontinuing their service, which can occur without notice.
So, why not make your own? Here is a modification of the earlier contrivance that accomplishes this.
#!/bin/bash
echo "Content-type: image/gif"
echo
echo -n 1 >>../../tallies
SUM=`cat ../../tallies | wc -c`
LEN=${#SUM}
IMG="H/$LEN"
for d in `seq 1 $LEN`
do
IMG="$IMG S"
IMG="$IMG P/`echo $LEN-$d | bc`"
IMG="$IMG `echo -n $SUM | tail -c $d | head -c 1`"
done
cd ../../counters
cat $IMG T
Line 1 as before, tells the web server that this file is a program written in the "bash" language.
Line 2 instructs the web server to send the user agent an HTTP header informing it of the type of content, in this case, a GIF image.
Line 3 as before is a blank line that signals the end of HTTP headers, so that all that follows will be sent to the user agent as the actual content produced by this CGI script (which happens only at line 15, but that is getting ahead of the story).
Line 4 as before increments the counter.
Line 5 assigns the visitor count as the value of the shell variable named SUM. As a running example, let's assume the value is 1957.
Line 6 assigns the length of the visitor count number (i.e. the number of digits it contains) to the shell variable named LEN. For our running example, this will be 4.
Line 7 assigns an initial value to the shell variable named IMG, the string "H/" followed by the actual length, "H/4" in our running example.
Line 8 begins a loop which, in our running example, will be used 4 times, since the command `seq 1 4` will return 1 2 3 4.
Line 9 open brackets the lines which will be repeated.
Line 10 appends a space character and the letter S to the IMG variable.
Line 11 appends a space character, then "P/" and, a number (the position, zero-based). For our running example, the numbers will be 3 2 1 0, as computed by having the command bc evaluate each of 4-1, 4-2, etc.
Line 12 appends a space character, then a digit from the number to be displayed. In our running example, these digits will be
Line 13 close brackets the lines which were to be repeated.
Line 14 changes the current directory to a folder named "counters" (which must be created--see below) which is out of the way of the files which can be served by the web server. This directory or folder must contain image fragments, which are used by the final line.
Line 15 concatenates many bits and pieces, which are each binary files. When all strung together, and ending with the contents of the binary file named T, this will produce a valid GIF file which will be the number from the web page visitor count.
In our running example, the value stored in the IMG variable at the end of the loop will be
H/4 S P/3 7 S P/2 5 S P/1 9 S P/0 1
and the complete command of line 15 would thus be
cat H/4 S P/3 7 S P/2 5 S P/1 9 S P/0 1 T
which will output the fourteen fragments--named H/4, S, P/3, 7, etc. and finally, the fragment named T--to the web server (which passes this content along to the user agent (the browser)).
To make this work, you will need to upload the file to the cgi-bin folder in the public html file provided by your web hosting company, naming it, say, "tallyimage.cgi". Once you have done this, anyone who visits the page at
[your domain name]/cgi-bin/tallyimage.cgiwill see the number of visitors, shown as a decimal number. And that is all that will be shown in the browser, because the user will have requested an image. At this point it will be a broken image (because the script will fail to execute correctly), until you install the image fragments.
You will also need to download the image fragments from the file counters.zip (which is also mentioned/used in a web page entitled "Image generation in DataPerfect") and unzip this file into a new folder named "counters" (for that is the name mentioned in line 14) in the folder containing the public html file provided by your web hosting company.
As a mnemonic, the 32 fragment names are
folder H for "header" (containing fragments named 1, 2, 3, ... 9, X(not used here))
S for "separator"
folder P for "position" (zero-based, containing fragments named 0, 1, 2, ... 9)
9 for the digit nine, etc.
T for "terminator"
Suppose you don't want to display the count on a web page, but you want to just count it as having been viewed? In this case, here is a much simpler CGI script to accomplish the task.
#!/bin/bash echo "Content-type: image/gif" echo echo -n 1 >>../../tallies cat 1x1.gif
The first four lines are identical to the previous CGI script.
Line 5 copies a file named 1x1.gif to the the web server, which passes it along to the user agent as the requested image. This file, as its name suggests, is a small one by one pixel GIF image, which (though its name does not suggest this) is transparent, so it can be included somewhere on a page without disruption of the visual appearance of the page.
The two contrivances live:
http://sanbachs.net/tallypagewithimage.html
http://sanbachs.net/tallythispage.html
These are normal web pages, which call for and display the contrivance images. On the second page, I have enlarged the image and surrounded it will a border so that you can see where it is. This will allow you to download a 1x1.gif file more easily.
Note that these web pages (and those of the previous post) all share the same "tallies" file, and thus share a page view counter.
As a modification to the previous "contrivance without conclusion," this is a contrivance without conflation of the two kinds of visits: the ones from a genuine request to view a page, and the ones from web crawlers and other user agents which do not request the images on the page.
* Technically, any software which makes a request for a web page is called a User Agent.
** A user can disable the automatic display of images on a web page, unfortunately, so this trick will miss counting such page views.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Context without content
I approach this blog post with a bit of apprehension. It is key to understanding much of what I intend to write going forward. Yet it is a bit dry, and maybe too technical. I will do my best to keep it interesting.
First, let's consider content without context. That could, of course, be a post by itself, but I'm trying to contrast it with the topic at hand.
I had a colleague at one of my places of work, whom I will call "Brent." Brent used to enjoy writing the number "1040" on the whiteboard, and would then look at his audience expectantly. After letting some painfully silent moments pass, he would ask, "What is this?" People would propose various things. He would finally point out that we can't know what it means until we understand the context. It could be the number of an IRS tax form (this was especially fun in April), the number of a house, Brent's favorite number*, the number of visits to a particular web page, and on and on. I used to think this was a rather self-evident point, but it was important to him that people think about it, and we often dedicated a moment of silence to its honor.
This post is about context without regard to any particular content. In other words, I wish to discuss a framework for thinking about things. I invite you to pause for a moment and consider this question, "In what sense is Cinderella alive?" I recognize that I am encouraging the same** kind of exercise that Brent enjoyed, but please humor me for a moment. I invite you, then, having considered this, to read the last half of a short blog post. The half about Cinderella (starting two paragraphs above the screenshot). The post is entitled, "Lying to children," and I hope you will find it amusing. Please come back here and finish reading this post after you have enjoyed that one.
Thank you for returning! It is always a bit of a gamble, on the Internet, to refer your readers away to another author. Especially a younger one.
The context that I wish to expose you to is from Karl Popper, a twentieth century philosopher. This way of thinking about things is commonly called "Popper's three worlds". Things might exist in World One as tangible, physical objects, such as the pages in a book which comprise the Cinderella fairy tale. Other things might exist in World Two as thoughts and mental pictures, such as those imagined by the reader of those pages, or if read aloud, by the child listening. There exist also things which, while not concrete, physical objects, nevertheless exert an impact on us, such as the character "Cinderella," and he assigns these things to World Three.
I don't want to get into this in any great detail in this post, because here I am merely setting up the stage for a number of subsequent posts, which, to be understood, will require that the reader be familiar with this way of looking at things. Every time we hear that something exists, or read a question about the existence of something, we can make distinctions about that something in terms of these three worlds.
For example, recently facebook has been displaying an ad that asks, "Do you believe in Africa?" Probably because we are now living on the African continent. Well, not really on the continent per se, but the island of Mauritius is considered to be a part of Africa.
What does this question mean? I never clicked on the ad to find out what the advertiser meant, and the ad no longer appears. In World One, yes, I believe that Africa exists in the physical world. I have seen it on maps and globes hundreds of times, have flown over it several times, and I have changed planes in an airport there. Not having looked at the advertiser's material, I do not know what was in his or her head about Africa, what thoughts or mental pictures he or she wished to implant in my World Two. I can only assume that it is something about Africa as a World Three entity, perhaps its future or its potential for greatness or economic growth (or pride to be African?).
I invite you to consider using Popper's three worlds as a way to organize your thoughts about things. Is it a real, tangible object? World one. Is it an idea flitting through your head? World two. Is it something that, while not tangible, has a life of its own, that people talk about or to which people pledge allegiance? World three.
In fairness to modern thinking, I must point out that this way of viewing reality is not popular now. And, that will become my point in future posts, because it is my own cognitive dissonance, bouncing back and forth between different ways of viewing reality, which drives me to write this blog.
For the moment, this is just context without content.
* This was not one of the examples he used at the time, but, hey, it was his favorite number! Something that I had not thought of at that time, but realized at this writing.
** "Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.", a Byron Katie quote.
First, let's consider content without context. That could, of course, be a post by itself, but I'm trying to contrast it with the topic at hand.
I had a colleague at one of my places of work, whom I will call "Brent." Brent used to enjoy writing the number "1040" on the whiteboard, and would then look at his audience expectantly. After letting some painfully silent moments pass, he would ask, "What is this?" People would propose various things. He would finally point out that we can't know what it means until we understand the context. It could be the number of an IRS tax form (this was especially fun in April), the number of a house, Brent's favorite number*, the number of visits to a particular web page, and on and on. I used to think this was a rather self-evident point, but it was important to him that people think about it, and we often dedicated a moment of silence to its honor.
This post is about context without regard to any particular content. In other words, I wish to discuss a framework for thinking about things. I invite you to pause for a moment and consider this question, "In what sense is Cinderella alive?" I recognize that I am encouraging the same** kind of exercise that Brent enjoyed, but please humor me for a moment. I invite you, then, having considered this, to read the last half of a short blog post. The half about Cinderella (starting two paragraphs above the screenshot). The post is entitled, "Lying to children," and I hope you will find it amusing. Please come back here and finish reading this post after you have enjoyed that one.
Thank you for returning! It is always a bit of a gamble, on the Internet, to refer your readers away to another author. Especially a younger one.
The context that I wish to expose you to is from Karl Popper, a twentieth century philosopher. This way of thinking about things is commonly called "Popper's three worlds". Things might exist in World One as tangible, physical objects, such as the pages in a book which comprise the Cinderella fairy tale. Other things might exist in World Two as thoughts and mental pictures, such as those imagined by the reader of those pages, or if read aloud, by the child listening. There exist also things which, while not concrete, physical objects, nevertheless exert an impact on us, such as the character "Cinderella," and he assigns these things to World Three.
I don't want to get into this in any great detail in this post, because here I am merely setting up the stage for a number of subsequent posts, which, to be understood, will require that the reader be familiar with this way of looking at things. Every time we hear that something exists, or read a question about the existence of something, we can make distinctions about that something in terms of these three worlds.
For example, recently facebook has been displaying an ad that asks, "Do you believe in Africa?" Probably because we are now living on the African continent. Well, not really on the continent per se, but the island of Mauritius is considered to be a part of Africa.
What does this question mean? I never clicked on the ad to find out what the advertiser meant, and the ad no longer appears. In World One, yes, I believe that Africa exists in the physical world. I have seen it on maps and globes hundreds of times, have flown over it several times, and I have changed planes in an airport there. Not having looked at the advertiser's material, I do not know what was in his or her head about Africa, what thoughts or mental pictures he or she wished to implant in my World Two. I can only assume that it is something about Africa as a World Three entity, perhaps its future or its potential for greatness or economic growth (or pride to be African?).
I invite you to consider using Popper's three worlds as a way to organize your thoughts about things. Is it a real, tangible object? World one. Is it an idea flitting through your head? World two. Is it something that, while not tangible, has a life of its own, that people talk about or to which people pledge allegiance? World three.
In fairness to modern thinking, I must point out that this way of viewing reality is not popular now. And, that will become my point in future posts, because it is my own cognitive dissonance, bouncing back and forth between different ways of viewing reality, which drives me to write this blog.
For the moment, this is just context without content.
* This was not one of the examples he used at the time, but, hey, it was his favorite number! Something that I had not thought of at that time, but realized at this writing.
** "Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.", a Byron Katie quote.
Consistency without completeness
A good friend, whom I will call "Stewart," responded by email to the previous blog post, and pointed me to a column by Charles Krauthammer, as reprinted in his book, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, pp. 64-66, Crown Publishing Group. The column is entitled, "The Central Axiom of Partisan Politics". (I would have liked to link to this column, but cannot.*)
As for the axiom itself, it is, "Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."
Where this gets interesting, to me, is his further claim that conservatives think liberals are stupid because they believe that everyone is basically good. Adding this reason to his axiom can be used to prove a contradiction, as follows (expressed from the point of view of liberals (according to conservatives according to Krauthammer)).
Well, this post isn't meant to be about politics. Instead, the mathematician in me followed the path of least resistance in response to the word "axiom," and this post is about the journey along that path. As a mathematician, I love formal logic systems, which are based on a small number of axioms, and the things that can be proven from them. If a logical contradiction can be proven from the axioms, then they are considered to be inconsistent, which is not a good thing for an axiom system.
An ideal formal system is both consistent and complete. Unfortunately, early in the twentieth century, Kurt Gödel proved that any sufficiently powerful formal system is either incomplete or inconsistent. This undid the grand project of mathematicians at that time, who had hoped to find a set of axioms from which all true statements could be proven.
The cognitive dissonance of this post's title would exist in the minds of mathematicians, for whom consistency without completeness is not good for a formal axiomatic system. It is resolved, sadly, by Gödel's theorem demonstrating that the desired resolution is, in fact, impossible. And we're just going to have to live with that.
Mathematicians seemed to me, in the 1970's, when I was an undergraduate minoring in mathematics, to be still (forty years later) in denial about this result, for it was not taught in the mathematics department. I had to take a course from the philosophy department to learn more about it.
*The Washington Post, in which the column originally appeared on July 26, 2002, has a web site, but it requires payment to view articles older than 2005. Very interesting. This makes it impossible for me to do a proper attribution. Yet, at the same time, I understand that newspapers have been hard-hit by the Internet, and are desperately scrambling to find ways to monetize their work product. Thus, I am quoting from the book, rather than the original source, which is hereby at least acknowledged..
**Rescher, N. (1982). The Coherence Theory of Truth. University Press of America.
***Try the "Look inside" option of amazon.com once you have found his book there.
As for the axiom itself, it is, "Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."
Where this gets interesting, to me, is his further claim that conservatives think liberals are stupid because they believe that everyone is basically good. Adding this reason to his axiom can be used to prove a contradiction, as follows (expressed from the point of view of liberals (according to conservatives according to Krauthammer)).
Every person is basically good. Conservatives are people. Therefore, conservatives are basically good. Oops. Contradiction, because, according to his axiom, liberals also believe that conservatives are evil.A contradiction in a system of formal logic would not be a good thing. But (according to Nicholas Rescher**) people don't reason using formal logic, and so we can be perfectly happy with Krauthammer's axiom. That is, if we are inclined to agree with his views on politics. I will leave that up to you, dear reader, if you are inclined to look for, find, and read the entire column***.
Well, this post isn't meant to be about politics. Instead, the mathematician in me followed the path of least resistance in response to the word "axiom," and this post is about the journey along that path. As a mathematician, I love formal logic systems, which are based on a small number of axioms, and the things that can be proven from them. If a logical contradiction can be proven from the axioms, then they are considered to be inconsistent, which is not a good thing for an axiom system.
An ideal formal system is both consistent and complete. Unfortunately, early in the twentieth century, Kurt Gödel proved that any sufficiently powerful formal system is either incomplete or inconsistent. This undid the grand project of mathematicians at that time, who had hoped to find a set of axioms from which all true statements could be proven.
The cognitive dissonance of this post's title would exist in the minds of mathematicians, for whom consistency without completeness is not good for a formal axiomatic system. It is resolved, sadly, by Gödel's theorem demonstrating that the desired resolution is, in fact, impossible. And we're just going to have to live with that.
Mathematicians seemed to me, in the 1970's, when I was an undergraduate minoring in mathematics, to be still (forty years later) in denial about this result, for it was not taught in the mathematics department. I had to take a course from the philosophy department to learn more about it.
*The Washington Post, in which the column originally appeared on July 26, 2002, has a web site, but it requires payment to view articles older than 2005. Very interesting. This makes it impossible for me to do a proper attribution. Yet, at the same time, I understand that newspapers have been hard-hit by the Internet, and are desperately scrambling to find ways to monetize their work product. Thus, I am quoting from the book, rather than the original source, which is hereby at least acknowledged..
**Rescher, N. (1982). The Coherence Theory of Truth. University Press of America.
***Try the "Look inside" option of amazon.com once you have found his book there.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Condescension without comprehension
This is something of a sad post for me, because it involves a disappointment from one of my all-time favorite authors, Douglas R. Hofstadter. I believe that I have read all of his books, and have studied one of them, Gödel, Escher, Bach, quite intensely. I admire both the depth of his thought and the ornateness of his writing. And, I just love all of the self-reference.
The disappointment is this quote from Le Ton beau de Marot, on page 485, in the section entitled "Concentric Rings of Diminishing Empathy".
I loved everything about the book, except for this one sentence, which I felt to be dismissive of right-wing people. It is obvious from his writing that he "leans left," but this has nowhere else been condescending in tone. The way I understood it is, "on the scale from sociopathic to exceedingly empathetic, you would encounter right-wing people first, nearer the sociopathic end, while left-wing people are more empathetic." Or, in other words, "the less well a right-wing person knows someone, the less he or she cares about them."
This is a very interesting claim, and I believe it to be an over-simplification at best, just plain wrong in the middle, and condescending at worst.
Here, I may be in a bit of trouble, because I am not trained in political science, so I ask help from readers. I think of left-wing as tending towards the welfare state and right-wing as tending towards self-sufficiency. The rest of this post is based on that assumption, so please help me understand if I am wrong.
Side remark: I also think of left-wing as being "progressive" while right-wing is "conservative." My parents were supporters for much of my growing up years of a political party in Canada named "Progressive Conservative," so perhaps this is not a dichotomy.
I am leery of the progressive movement because of this truism: All progress requires change, but not all change is progress. In order to join in in calling reckless change "progress" I would need to understand the long-term goal of the progressive movement. Someone, please paint me a picture of the ideal society towards which we are making progress with these changes? But, this would be the topic of a different post, and one which I am not ready to write until my empathy for the progressive movement increases.
Back to the topic. Personally, I identify more with "right-wing" than I do with alternatives. Nevertheless, I have personally taken early retirement in order to live half-way around the world to help people who, until recently, were very remote in my "acquaintance space." Certainly my empathy has not tailed off with the distance.
I propose that the conflict between left-wing and right-wing has nothing to do with empathy at all, but everything to do with how best to help people in need. Grosso modo, I believe, the left-wing prefers to help the needy with government programs while the right-wing prefers to help the needy with private and locally-run programs.
This is well illustrated by conversations I have enjoyed with a good friend, whom I shall call "John." John is frustrated that the government isn't doing more to help the poor. He earns a very good income and yet wishes that the federal tax rate were much higher, perhaps even 60% to 80% so that social programs could be funded, and no one would need to suffer and die in poverty. This is what is done in some countries in the world, and he wished his country was more like these. Each person in society could then choose, if they are able, to work and pay for those who are unable, or who choose not, to work.
For my part, I told him about a fund which is managed by a private charitable organization. This fund accepts donations, and has tens of thousands of local units which actively seek out the poor and needy in order to help them with food, clothing, and shelter. And to find work if they are able and so desire. The overhead for managing the fund is provided by the charitable organization from other sources, so that the fund itself uses 100% of donations received to help the poor and needy. There are millions of voluntary contributors to this fund throughout the world, and it is actively engaged throughout the world. Would you be willing, I asked, to voluntarily contribute 20% to 40% of your income to this fund? This would go a long way towards helping those in poverty. No. He was not willing to voluntarily contribute to this fund.
I have no conclusion to offer for this post. I wish that I could have a dialog with my favorite author to find out if I am understanding his meaning correctly, or if it might be that I have simply taken offense where none was intended.
I do wish to invite my readers to consider this post from another blog, "The value of struggle." I was surprised in a speech by a left-wing person to hear that they understand that struggle has value, while at the same time seeking to remove the need to struggle. An interesting contradiction.
The disappointment is this quote from Le Ton beau de Marot, on page 485, in the section entitled "Concentric Rings of Diminishing Empathy".
A few rare people are exceedingly empathetic, a few are extremely sociopathic, and most of us fall somewhere closer to the middle.
The distance in "acquaintance space" at which an individual's empathy tails off is a central character trait determining many things, including one's politics.
Grosso modo, the conflict between left-wing and right-wing ideologies is simply the battle between small-radius and large-radius individuals writ large.
I loved everything about the book, except for this one sentence, which I felt to be dismissive of right-wing people. It is obvious from his writing that he "leans left," but this has nowhere else been condescending in tone. The way I understood it is, "on the scale from sociopathic to exceedingly empathetic, you would encounter right-wing people first, nearer the sociopathic end, while left-wing people are more empathetic." Or, in other words, "the less well a right-wing person knows someone, the less he or she cares about them."
This is a very interesting claim, and I believe it to be an over-simplification at best, just plain wrong in the middle, and condescending at worst.
Here, I may be in a bit of trouble, because I am not trained in political science, so I ask help from readers. I think of left-wing as tending towards the welfare state and right-wing as tending towards self-sufficiency. The rest of this post is based on that assumption, so please help me understand if I am wrong.
Side remark: I also think of left-wing as being "progressive" while right-wing is "conservative." My parents were supporters for much of my growing up years of a political party in Canada named "Progressive Conservative," so perhaps this is not a dichotomy.
I am leery of the progressive movement because of this truism: All progress requires change, but not all change is progress. In order to join in in calling reckless change "progress" I would need to understand the long-term goal of the progressive movement. Someone, please paint me a picture of the ideal society towards which we are making progress with these changes? But, this would be the topic of a different post, and one which I am not ready to write until my empathy for the progressive movement increases.
Back to the topic. Personally, I identify more with "right-wing" than I do with alternatives. Nevertheless, I have personally taken early retirement in order to live half-way around the world to help people who, until recently, were very remote in my "acquaintance space." Certainly my empathy has not tailed off with the distance.
I propose that the conflict between left-wing and right-wing has nothing to do with empathy at all, but everything to do with how best to help people in need. Grosso modo, I believe, the left-wing prefers to help the needy with government programs while the right-wing prefers to help the needy with private and locally-run programs.
This is well illustrated by conversations I have enjoyed with a good friend, whom I shall call "John." John is frustrated that the government isn't doing more to help the poor. He earns a very good income and yet wishes that the federal tax rate were much higher, perhaps even 60% to 80% so that social programs could be funded, and no one would need to suffer and die in poverty. This is what is done in some countries in the world, and he wished his country was more like these. Each person in society could then choose, if they are able, to work and pay for those who are unable, or who choose not, to work.
For my part, I told him about a fund which is managed by a private charitable organization. This fund accepts donations, and has tens of thousands of local units which actively seek out the poor and needy in order to help them with food, clothing, and shelter. And to find work if they are able and so desire. The overhead for managing the fund is provided by the charitable organization from other sources, so that the fund itself uses 100% of donations received to help the poor and needy. There are millions of voluntary contributors to this fund throughout the world, and it is actively engaged throughout the world. Would you be willing, I asked, to voluntarily contribute 20% to 40% of your income to this fund? This would go a long way towards helping those in poverty. No. He was not willing to voluntarily contribute to this fund.
I have no conclusion to offer for this post. I wish that I could have a dialog with my favorite author to find out if I am understanding his meaning correctly, or if it might be that I have simply taken offense where none was intended.
I do wish to invite my readers to consider this post from another blog, "The value of struggle." I was surprised in a speech by a left-wing person to hear that they understand that struggle has value, while at the same time seeking to remove the need to struggle. An interesting contradiction.
Constraint without constriction
Dear readers, this is a short post to beg an indulgence. Thus far, all of the blog posts have had titles which followed a strict lexical constraint. Three words. Middle word being "without" and the other words starting with "con".
However, "con-" as a prefix is written "com-" before five consonants, and is often reduced to "co-" in newer English words. Thus, I intend to relax the constraint on blog post titles just slightly, while, I hope, maintaining the spirit of the original constraint.
I sincerely hope not to offend nor to disappoint my readers.
However, "con-" as a prefix is written "com-" before five consonants, and is often reduced to "co-" in newer English words. Thus, I intend to relax the constraint on blog post titles just slightly, while, I hope, maintaining the spirit of the original constraint.
I sincerely hope not to offend nor to disappoint my readers.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Contrivance without conclusion
This might be the smallest web page which counts and displays the number of times it has been seen.
It is a contrivance, all right. Without conclusion? Well, not literally so. Eventually, it might run out of disk space. Probably before that the web hosting company owning the disk drive will go out of business. Probably before that the owner of the domain name will leave the planet or otherwise lose interest in maintaining it.
To make this work, you will need to reserve a domain name, engage a web hosting company for disk space and the use of a web server. Then, you will need to upload this file to a folder named "cgi-bin" within the public html folder provided by the web hosting company. You will of course give this file a name when you upload it. Supposing you give it the name "tally.cgi" it will be available to anyone with an internet connection as
Each time someone looks at it, he or she will see a number. Ever larger numbers. And that is all. The number will be equal to the number of times the page has been visited. No one, including you testing it, will ever see the number zero.
How does it work? Delighted that you asked.
The browser asks the web server at your domain (running on the machine belonging to the web hosting company) for the page. The web server runs the program which you have named "tally.cgi" by interpreting it as explained here. The web server uses the output of the program to prepare a response which it then forwards to the browser.
Line 1 tells the web server that this file is a program written in the "bash" language. This is one of the Linux shells, normally used at the command line prompt. So the web server starts up a bash shell and passes the file to it for execution.
Line 2 produces as output an HTTP header which will ultimately let the browser know that the content is plain text.
Line 3 outputs an empty line, which signals to the web server that the HTTP headers are finished, and that what follows will be the actual content to be sent to the browser.
Line 4 produces no output, but adds one to the file named "tallies". A quirk here is that it adds one by adding a digit "1" to the end of the file. The number of visits is maintained in base one, rather than the more familiar base ten.
Line 5 outputs a base ten number expressing the number of characters (all ones, remember) in the file named "tallies"
Then, the program stops, signalling to the web server that the page is complete, and the web server passes this information along to the browser, which will signal to the person that the page is complete.
The count will include visits of the page by web crawlers, such as the ones used by search engines. So, strictly speaking, it is not counting the number of times the page is viewed by a person (using a browser or mobile phone), but rather the number of times the page is requested of the web server.
Why use base one, instead of base ten? Glad you asked! For some insane reason your web page might become wildly popular, with people around the world accessing it over and over again just for the pleasure of seeing ever larger numbers. What happens if two of these requests arrive at the web server at exactly and precisely the same moment in time? If we had been using base ten, the operation of adding one to the number would involve reading in the (base ten) number, adding one to it, and writing out the next (base ten) number. If the web server is running two copies of your program and both copies read in the same number, both will increment it, and both will write out the next number, and one visit will be missed. This is known in the computing industry as a critical section. By contrast, the operation of appending a character to the end of a file is indivisible, and so the count will not be missed.
But won't this require more disk space than a base ten number? Yes, considerably more as the count gets bigger and bigger. This is an example of a trade-off. We are trading off space for the advantage of indivisibility or reliability. Of course, this is a bit contrived, because what does it really matter if the count is off by one once in awhile? Especially if there are billions of page views, this would consume vast amounts of disk space, with each byte being exactly the same digit "1". Well, yes, but that's not going to happen, because billions of people are not going to be viewing a page that merely contains an ever larger number. They have better things to do, such as looking at pictures of cats.
Could this be used to count visitors to a real web page? Sure. Adapt it like this.
Notice the change to line 2.
The adapted line 5 does not output the visitor count, but instead assigns it as the value of a shell variable named "COUNT".
Line 6 starts copying the following lines (your real web page!), up to but not including the end marker, to the output to be sent by the web server to the browser. The construct "$COUNT" will be replaced in the output with the value of the "COUNT" variable, which you recall is the visitor count. You can safely use the plural "times" because no one will see the page when it says "visited 1 times." Other than the first time you test it.
This paragraph marks the conclusion of this post. So, it was not the post itself which was without conclusion, but rather the contrivance described therein, which in principle would never run out of numbers.
[added Sun May 11 06:59:14 CDT 2014]
The two contrivances live:
http://sanbachs.net/cgi-bin/tally.cgi
http://sanbachs.net/cgi-bin/tallypage.cgi
Note that both web pages share the same "tallies" file, and thus share a page view counter.
[added Sun May 11 14:03:51 CDT 2014]
CGI stands for "Common Gateway Interface"
#!/bin/bash echo "Content-type: text/plain" echo echo -n 1 >>../../tallies cat ../../tallies | wc -c
It is a contrivance, all right. Without conclusion? Well, not literally so. Eventually, it might run out of disk space. Probably before that the web hosting company owning the disk drive will go out of business. Probably before that the owner of the domain name will leave the planet or otherwise lose interest in maintaining it.
To make this work, you will need to reserve a domain name, engage a web hosting company for disk space and the use of a web server. Then, you will need to upload this file to a folder named "cgi-bin" within the public html folder provided by the web hosting company. You will of course give this file a name when you upload it. Supposing you give it the name "tally.cgi" it will be available to anyone with an internet connection as
[your domain name]/cgi-bin/tally.cgiNext, you will need to convince some people to look at your web page. And that is in fact the hardest thing of all to accomplish. The social problems being harder than the technical problems.
Each time someone looks at it, he or she will see a number. Ever larger numbers. And that is all. The number will be equal to the number of times the page has been visited. No one, including you testing it, will ever see the number zero.
How does it work? Delighted that you asked.
The browser asks the web server at your domain (running on the machine belonging to the web hosting company) for the page. The web server runs the program which you have named "tally.cgi" by interpreting it as explained here. The web server uses the output of the program to prepare a response which it then forwards to the browser.
Line 1 tells the web server that this file is a program written in the "bash" language. This is one of the Linux shells, normally used at the command line prompt. So the web server starts up a bash shell and passes the file to it for execution.
Line 2 produces as output an HTTP header which will ultimately let the browser know that the content is plain text.
Line 3 outputs an empty line, which signals to the web server that the HTTP headers are finished, and that what follows will be the actual content to be sent to the browser.
Line 4 produces no output, but adds one to the file named "tallies". A quirk here is that it adds one by adding a digit "1" to the end of the file. The number of visits is maintained in base one, rather than the more familiar base ten.
Line 5 outputs a base ten number expressing the number of characters (all ones, remember) in the file named "tallies"
Then, the program stops, signalling to the web server that the page is complete, and the web server passes this information along to the browser, which will signal to the person that the page is complete.
The count will include visits of the page by web crawlers, such as the ones used by search engines. So, strictly speaking, it is not counting the number of times the page is viewed by a person (using a browser or mobile phone), but rather the number of times the page is requested of the web server.
Why use base one, instead of base ten? Glad you asked! For some insane reason your web page might become wildly popular, with people around the world accessing it over and over again just for the pleasure of seeing ever larger numbers. What happens if two of these requests arrive at the web server at exactly and precisely the same moment in time? If we had been using base ten, the operation of adding one to the number would involve reading in the (base ten) number, adding one to it, and writing out the next (base ten) number. If the web server is running two copies of your program and both copies read in the same number, both will increment it, and both will write out the next number, and one visit will be missed. This is known in the computing industry as a critical section. By contrast, the operation of appending a character to the end of a file is indivisible, and so the count will not be missed.
But won't this require more disk space than a base ten number? Yes, considerably more as the count gets bigger and bigger. This is an example of a trade-off. We are trading off space for the advantage of indivisibility or reliability. Of course, this is a bit contrived, because what does it really matter if the count is off by one once in awhile? Especially if there are billions of page views, this would consume vast amounts of disk space, with each byte being exactly the same digit "1". Well, yes, but that's not going to happen, because billions of people are not going to be viewing a page that merely contains an ever larger number. They have better things to do, such as looking at pictures of cats.
Could this be used to count visitors to a real web page? Sure. Adapt it like this.
#!/bin/bash echo "Content-type: text/html" echo echo -n 1 >>../../tallies COUNT=`cat ../../tallies | wc -c` cat <<ENDMARKER ... your real web page goes here ... <p>This page has been visited $COUNT times.</p> ... the conclusion of your real web page ... ENDMARKER
Notice the change to line 2.
The adapted line 5 does not output the visitor count, but instead assigns it as the value of a shell variable named "COUNT".
Line 6 starts copying the following lines (your real web page!), up to but not including the end marker, to the output to be sent by the web server to the browser. The construct "$COUNT" will be replaced in the output with the value of the "COUNT" variable, which you recall is the visitor count. You can safely use the plural "times" because no one will see the page when it says "visited 1 times." Other than the first time you test it.
This paragraph marks the conclusion of this post. So, it was not the post itself which was without conclusion, but rather the contrivance described therein, which in principle would never run out of numbers.
[added Sun May 11 06:59:14 CDT 2014]
The two contrivances live:
http://sanbachs.net/cgi-bin/tally.cgi
http://sanbachs.net/cgi-bin/tallypage.cgi
Note that both web pages share the same "tallies" file, and thus share a page view counter.
[added Sun May 11 14:03:51 CDT 2014]
CGI stands for "Common Gateway Interface"
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Controversy without contention
In a word, I suppose, diplomacy. Of course, I am only an armchair diplomat, having neither experience nor training.
The cognitive dissonance (required of posts in this blog) in this post is pretty subtle, as the two words are very closely related.
Disagreements happen all the time. It seems that we are built in such a way as to see situations from our particular perspective, which is necessarily different from the perspective of another, even if standing very close and looking in the same direction. As we attempt to communicate our view, it may be different from our listener's view, and controversy can easily ensue.
In this respect, may I draw your attention to this quotation from a presentation, ¨Seeing beyond the Leaf¨, given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf as the keynote address at the Church History Symposium of 2014. It is based on an analogy of individuals as leaves of a tree.
In another word, this post is about peacemaking.
In her patriarchal blessing, our mother was promised that her children would be peacemakers. I remember her often telling us this as we quarreled together. Personally, I have more often been a peace-seeker rather than a peace-maker, preferring to avoid even controversy, let alone contention. I can only recall one, very short-lived, fist fight in which I was involved, and that completely unintentional. This is recounted in the first of seven western stories in another blog. The second story there is an example of my avoiding controversy in a passive-aggressive way, which comes more naturally to me than fisticuffs.
There is much more to say about controversy without contention, so this is merely an introduction. In many ways, this blog is motivated by my desire to reify the promise in my mother's patriarchal blessing, at least for one of her children.
The cognitive dissonance (required of posts in this blog) in this post is pretty subtle, as the two words are very closely related.
Disagreements happen all the time. It seems that we are built in such a way as to see situations from our particular perspective, which is necessarily different from the perspective of another, even if standing very close and looking in the same direction. As we attempt to communicate our view, it may be different from our listener's view, and controversy can easily ensue.
In this respect, may I draw your attention to this quotation from a presentation, ¨Seeing beyond the Leaf¨, given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf as the keynote address at the Church History Symposium of 2014. It is based on an analogy of individuals as leaves of a tree.
One of the weaknesses we have as mortals is to assume that our “leaf” is all there is—that our experience encompasses everyone else’s, that our truth is complete and universal.Controversy does not have to degenerate into contention, although it easily can, especially if those involved feel strongly about their respective viewpoints. Perhaps the simplest way to achieve resolution is to agree to disagree. One could hope that the parties involved would take care to understand each other's point of view first, but of course that takes time and effort not to mention willingness to listen and effort to understand.
In another word, this post is about peacemaking.
In her patriarchal blessing, our mother was promised that her children would be peacemakers. I remember her often telling us this as we quarreled together. Personally, I have more often been a peace-seeker rather than a peace-maker, preferring to avoid even controversy, let alone contention. I can only recall one, very short-lived, fist fight in which I was involved, and that completely unintentional. This is recounted in the first of seven western stories in another blog. The second story there is an example of my avoiding controversy in a passive-aggressive way, which comes more naturally to me than fisticuffs.
There is much more to say about controversy without contention, so this is merely an introduction. In many ways, this blog is motivated by my desire to reify the promise in my mother's patriarchal blessing, at least for one of her children.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Conrad without con
This is a blog devoted to raising and resolving instances of cognitive dissonance.
So, how to resolve the dissonance of the blog's name? For, "con" means roughly "with", and "with without with" seems a bit dissonant, besides being self-contradictory. (After all, "with" without "w i t h" would just be the empty string, leaving just "out" after substitution throughout).
Hopefully, over time, the posts will give enough examples of resolution, thus resolving the dissonance of the blog's title.
The name of the blog is also meant as a pattern of sorts, as I am self-imposing a constraint on blog post titles. The promise that I am making, as I start the blog, is that post titles will be of the form "Con[x] without con[y]" where [x] and [y] will be the remainder (possibly empty, as [y] is here) of words beginning with "con-".
Now, moving on to this initial post, which ought to be subtitled, "The French connection."
In the 1970's my work took me to the computing center of INSEE, the French census bureau, located in Lille. At the time, I lived in Châtenay-Malabry, a suburb of Paris, and commuted, mostly by train (about two hours each way). The company for which I worked, CAP Sogeti Logiciel, allowed me to work four ten hour days a week, so that I only commuted weekly, and had room and board with a very nice couple in Lille for the nights and meals spent away from home.
The system administrator at the computing center was a great guy, whom I learned to like (and whose name I wish I could remember). My initial interaction with him is the subject of this post. At that time in the history of computing, there were no personal computers. Instead, computers were very large, very expensive, and ran very hot. So, this one was contained in a large room which was air conditioned, and had a false floor for all the cables combining the various components. The entire room was much less powerful than one of today's laptop computers, and it was shared by dozens of users, all software engineers. It also required an operator, actually operators, who worked in shifts around the clock. The whole operation involved many employees. Work was prepared on punched cards with each bit of work called a "job". A job was at least a dozen or so cards, and often hundreds of cards. It was submitted to the operator, who had it read into the computer. When its turn came, the computer executed (obeyed, or carried out) the instructions specified on the punched cards. These instructions were written in Job Control Language (JCL). The result of the execution was printed on continuous, fan-folded paper, and available from the operator when the job was finished, as he or she got around to separating the outputs and delivering them to a room where they were sorted into bins according the the job name.
The syntax of JCL requires that the first card of the job look like this:
//JOBNAME JOB
Where "JOBNAME" is replaced by a name of the submitter's choosing, consisting of letters and digits but starting with a letter. To keep things under control, the system administrator of the Lille facility had refined the requirement so that the first card must look like this:
//XYZ9999 JOB
Where the pattern XYZ9999 is meant to show the form of the name of the job, with XYZ indicating the first three letters of the family name of the person submitting the job and 9999 indicating a unique number. Since the first three letters of my family name are "con" and since "con" is a word unfit for proper public conversation in French, I sought an exception to the rule. The operator snickered and then told me that an exception would probably not be made, but that I could always go and ask the system administrator anyway. When I knocked at his door, he lifted his head reluctantly from his work and the conversation went something like this. Of course, I didn't write it down or record it, so the dialog is fiction, and of course, it was also in French.
"Yes?"
"Could I get an exception to the job naming rule?"
"No," as his head went back down. Then as I turned to leave, "What is your last name?"
"Conrad."
"Your job names will begin CNR," he snapped, and went back to work.
Thus were the operators spared endless amusement, and myself oft-repeated embarrassment. My name was Conrad without "con" but rather Conrad as "cnr". The first card of the first job that I submitted was
//CNR0001 JOB
and over the next several months I submitted hundreds of jobs, each with a different number, but all with names beginning "CNR."
Finally, an unrelated anecdote--a bonus resolution. One of the officials of INSEE with whom we often worked when he visited from their head office in Paris always called me "Conrad" in our conversations. "Conrad" is a very common first given name in French, and rather uncommon as a family name. One day as we waited to board a train, he apologized for having always called me by my first name, but that that was the only name he knew for me. In France at the time, colleagues commonly called each other by the family name, generally dropping the leading "Monsieur" or "Madame" or "Mademoiselle" as familiarity increased, but only used given names when very, very familiar (which takes a lot of time in French society). He was relieved to learn that "Conrad" was my family name and that he had been correctly addressing me all along. Another bit of cognitive dissonance resolved.
So, how to resolve the dissonance of the blog's name? For, "con" means roughly "with", and "with without with" seems a bit dissonant, besides being self-contradictory. (After all, "with" without "w i t h" would just be the empty string, leaving just "out" after substitution throughout).
Hopefully, over time, the posts will give enough examples of resolution, thus resolving the dissonance of the blog's title.
The name of the blog is also meant as a pattern of sorts, as I am self-imposing a constraint on blog post titles. The promise that I am making, as I start the blog, is that post titles will be of the form "Con[x] without con[y]" where [x] and [y] will be the remainder (possibly empty, as [y] is here) of words beginning with "con-".
Now, moving on to this initial post, which ought to be subtitled, "The French connection."
In the 1970's my work took me to the computing center of INSEE, the French census bureau, located in Lille. At the time, I lived in Châtenay-Malabry, a suburb of Paris, and commuted, mostly by train (about two hours each way). The company for which I worked, CAP Sogeti Logiciel, allowed me to work four ten hour days a week, so that I only commuted weekly, and had room and board with a very nice couple in Lille for the nights and meals spent away from home.
The system administrator at the computing center was a great guy, whom I learned to like (and whose name I wish I could remember). My initial interaction with him is the subject of this post. At that time in the history of computing, there were no personal computers. Instead, computers were very large, very expensive, and ran very hot. So, this one was contained in a large room which was air conditioned, and had a false floor for all the cables combining the various components. The entire room was much less powerful than one of today's laptop computers, and it was shared by dozens of users, all software engineers. It also required an operator, actually operators, who worked in shifts around the clock. The whole operation involved many employees. Work was prepared on punched cards with each bit of work called a "job". A job was at least a dozen or so cards, and often hundreds of cards. It was submitted to the operator, who had it read into the computer. When its turn came, the computer executed (obeyed, or carried out) the instructions specified on the punched cards. These instructions were written in Job Control Language (JCL). The result of the execution was printed on continuous, fan-folded paper, and available from the operator when the job was finished, as he or she got around to separating the outputs and delivering them to a room where they were sorted into bins according the the job name.
The syntax of JCL requires that the first card of the job look like this:
//JOBNAME JOB
Where "JOBNAME" is replaced by a name of the submitter's choosing, consisting of letters and digits but starting with a letter. To keep things under control, the system administrator of the Lille facility had refined the requirement so that the first card must look like this:
//XYZ9999 JOB
Where the pattern XYZ9999 is meant to show the form of the name of the job, with XYZ indicating the first three letters of the family name of the person submitting the job and 9999 indicating a unique number. Since the first three letters of my family name are "con" and since "con" is a word unfit for proper public conversation in French, I sought an exception to the rule. The operator snickered and then told me that an exception would probably not be made, but that I could always go and ask the system administrator anyway. When I knocked at his door, he lifted his head reluctantly from his work and the conversation went something like this. Of course, I didn't write it down or record it, so the dialog is fiction, and of course, it was also in French.
"Yes?"
"Could I get an exception to the job naming rule?"
"No," as his head went back down. Then as I turned to leave, "What is your last name?"
"Conrad."
"Your job names will begin CNR," he snapped, and went back to work.
Thus were the operators spared endless amusement, and myself oft-repeated embarrassment. My name was Conrad without "con" but rather Conrad as "cnr". The first card of the first job that I submitted was
//CNR0001 JOB
and over the next several months I submitted hundreds of jobs, each with a different number, but all with names beginning "CNR."
Finally, an unrelated anecdote--a bonus resolution. One of the officials of INSEE with whom we often worked when he visited from their head office in Paris always called me "Conrad" in our conversations. "Conrad" is a very common first given name in French, and rather uncommon as a family name. One day as we waited to board a train, he apologized for having always called me by my first name, but that that was the only name he knew for me. In France at the time, colleagues commonly called each other by the family name, generally dropping the leading "Monsieur" or "Madame" or "Mademoiselle" as familiarity increased, but only used given names when very, very familiar (which takes a lot of time in French society). He was relieved to learn that "Conrad" was my family name and that he had been correctly addressing me all along. Another bit of cognitive dissonance resolved.
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