The Easter Bunny is Very Pissed Off. Vleeptron is Very Pissed Off. How hard can this be?

Yeah, click both images.

This extraordinarily easy, simple little problem has been sitting on VleeptronZ, in full public view of every Carbon or Silicon Entity who can get its hands (if it has hands) on a computer, since 15 March 2007 -- roughly 11 months. It is growing Old, it badly needs a haircut and a shower, it is starting to smell bad and fester and mold.

The Easter Bunny feels unloved, unwanted, lonely. The Easter Bunny, who feels terribly guilty about assassinating the Russian Imperial family and stealing their fabulous Faberge Easter Eggs, desperately needs YOUR help to give 13 of them back to 13 lucky little girls and boys this Easter

but answer came there none.

Despite the spectacular Prize of 1 Giant Pizza with the Toppings of the winner's choice, nobody has submitted an Answer.

Not even RamanuJohn, the Amazing Occidental Mathematical Mystic from Maine, who solved the original 7-Node Travelling Santa Problem, thus allowing Santa Claus to deliver iPods and Amy Winehouse "Rehab" .mp3s to 7 little boys and girls on Christmas Eve in the shortest possible distance and time.

Does this crowd believe in Santa Claus, but think the Easter Bunny is some kind of silly myth undeserving of a little computational assistance? There are odd theological implications in this possible reason why this problem is being universally dissed and ignored.

Initially we loudly dangled this problem in front of The Dutch Power Cows, who arrogantly boast (in Dutch) that they are the most powerful organization of amateur computerists on Planet Earth, regularly annihilating some of the most difficult mathematical and scientific problems known to Klaas from Rotterdam.

Well, obviously, the DPC are not really very good at this kind of thing, and are probably just a front for a porn and hydroponic cannabis gang. Or perhaps their inability to read a blog in English has blinded them to the interesting mathematical and computational aspects of the Easter Bunny's troubles.

So, okay, I will use Very Small Words to explain what is going on here, to offer special assistance to the Thick.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny face an astonishingly famous mathematical problem more commonly called The Travelling Salesman Problem, or the TSP.

(In the UK a travelling salesman is called a Commercial Traveller, and Durrenmatt called one of these gentleman "Traps," a nickname from the luggage in which he schleps around his sales samples. What happened to him when his car broke down in the Alps one night will curl your hair, but he probably deserved it. If you can't read, you can rent the excellent video starring George Segal.)

Yes, of course women travel around selling crap too, but mathematicians and computerists still call it The Travelling Salesman Problem.

And it's actually a Practical Problem. Real Human Beings who reside in Ordinary SpaceTime just like baseball players and Britney Spears actually need the Answers to TSP to save Money (do I have your attention now?) and Time, which is Money. Real Capitalist Corporations use their Big Computers to try to get Answers to TSP so they can Make More Money.

A Travelling Salescreature who is sitting at Headquarters must visit customers in n cities, each city just once, and after the last city, fly back to Headquarters. Each flight between cities is a straight line.

Suppose n = 3 or 4 or 5. This does not present much of a headache; there aren't very many different possible paths to analyze and sum the flight length segments to find the shortest possible path.

But when n = 6, 7 (Go RamanuJohn!) or more, things require Aspirin, or (for Canadians) Aspirin with Codeine, and Big, Fast Computers and Supercomputers.

As n gets bigger, the number of different possible paths increases so dramatically that the Salescreature, and the company's entire IT Department, just give up and essentially have to pick an educated guess -- which almost certainly is NOT the shortest possible path. It's sort of short-ish, and can be shown to save on airfare more than most other paths, but No Pizza.

(You can get a Ph.D. and a big private-sector paycheck by specializing in the mathematical field of this kind of Educated Guessing.)

Eventually n gets so big that computing The Shortest Possible Path is beyond the power of the world's biggest Supercomputers -- at least in a reasonable amount of time. Finding the Shortest Path after all the Sales Associates are dead will not help the corporation get richer.

Okay, there are other Practical (and non-Practical, but Fun) Applications for TSP besides selling shoelaces and glow-in-the-dark condoms.

Trust Vleeptron: This is a Very Important and consequently a Very Famous Mathematical Problem.

And in only 33 days, the Easter Bunny needs the Answer. Time (which is Money) is running out. The Easter Bunny is not getting any younger or smelling any sweeter, and the Giant Pizza isn't, either.

I know everybody thinks Math is Disgusting and Vulgar and (as Talking Barbie used to say) Hard. I know you like Vleeptron better when we show images of pretty young naked Suisse women, or discuss the Technology of Male Face Shaving, which (by counting Comments received) is The Most Important Thing In The World.

(The War in Iraq and USA Election 2008 and Protecting Our Schoolchildren from Charles Darwin get Comments, but not nearly as many as Shaving.)

I am trying to solve the Easter Bunny's Problem myself, with my amazing new Vleeptron Supercomputer, the envy of Real Estate Agencies and Dental Practices throughout the Connecticut River Valley.

Unfortunately the only software tools available to me at the moment are my beloved ancient unsupported QuickBasic and my new Python, which is wonderful because it is Free, but it is also Slow as Bre'r Rabbit Molasses, and if I use Python or QB, I will probably get the Answer sometime around 2020 AD.

So once again I am taking a Second Look at the outre Forth (extinct-ish) and LisP (currently un-trendy, maybe extincting). Other programming lingo advice always gratefully received. Am I finally going to have to overcome my aesthetic revulsion for C++ to solve this sucker? I'd really rather not, but ... well, whatever it takes.

What follows is a slightly modified and updated version of the original 13-Node Travelling Easter Bunny Problem AND the x,y coordinates of the houses of the 13 little boys and girls who are still waiting for their Faberge Easter Eggs. The coordinates are in text that can be copied and pasted into your computer (or your college's mainframe) without risking re-typing errors.

Oh. Okay. So I squished the Earth and made it Flat. Go ahead, make fun of me, insult me, complain. Here is a ready-made Comment:

Anonymous wrote:

asshole the erth is rownd

Well, here's the deal. Some Real Mathematician PROVED that TSP is the same problem whether the Earth is an Oblate Spheroid or Flat. So there.

TSP, on a sphere or on a plane, belongs to a class of problems called NP-Hard. (GeekSpeak: nondeterministic polynomial-time hard.) If you can find a significant time-slashing shortcut to TSP, this shortcut will equally slash the time it takes to compute all NP-Hard problems, and maybe you can get invited to be on Late Night with David Letterman.

If you got a C+ or better in Mandatory Geometry Class, you should be Very Grateful that I squished the Earth and made it Flat. Because you just possibly might remember that you can use the Pythagorean right-triangle relationship to find the straight-line distances between any two cities.

If you would prefer finding the Easter Bunny's Shortest Possible Path on the Surface of a Sphere, using segments of Great Circle arcs and Spherical Trigonometry, Leave A Comment, you Sick Fuck, I'll see what I can do.

How hard can this be? Huh? Really. How hard can this be?

===================

I am the Easter Bunny, and I need your help!

Easter Sunday 2008 is 23 March, so I don't have much time.

In 1918, after assassinating Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia and their children, the Easter Bunny stole all their fabulous Fabergé Easter eggs made of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, pearls and gold.

I feel very bad about this, and now I want to give back 13 of the beautiful Fabergé eggs.

I have chosen 13 little girls and boys, who live in 13 different houses, and I want to deliver the beautiful Fabergé eggs to them on Easter.

I need to know The Shortest Possible Path from Easter Bunny Centre, to each house, and then back home again to Easter Bunny Centre.

Finding the Shortest Possible Path connecting 13 different places is a Very Hard Problem, and I'm just a Dumb Bunny who is not smart enough to find the Shortest Possible Path in time for Easter!

As you all know,

* the Earth is Flat

* the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line

* all distances are measured in kilometers

* Easter Bunny Centre is at the origin (0, 0)

Here are the (x, y) coordinates of the houses of the 13 children:

child ............ x .......... y
==================================
Anna ....... -267.79 .... -083.96
Benjamin ... -826.03 .... +846.76
Carmen ..... +863.47 .... -416.76
David ...... -510.72 .... +450.21
Eloise ..... +905.16 .... -597.97
Freddy ..... +701.36 .... -691.47
Gemma ...... -653.85 .... -469.27
Hrothgar ... +460.26 .... +096.81
Imogen ..... -713.34 .... -706.31
Jacques .... +917.97 .... -016.04
Kiki ....... +344.47 .... +462.57
Leonhard ... +884.65 .... +164.46
Mimi ....... +061.24 .... -962.69
==================================

Here are EXAMPLES of a Path Answer. Small "e" stands for Easter Bunny Centre. The Easter Bunny only needs 2 decimal digits of precision.

Path .......... Length of Path
==============================
eABCDEFGHIJKLMe 87654321.09 km
eCMBJGFLAHEKDIe 45678901.23 km
==============================

[An illustration of the second example is shown above.]

Please help me! What is the Shortest Possible Path??? Don't make me hop all over the place and waste weeks of time. I need to deliver all 13 Fabergé eggs on Easter Sunday!

I have posted my problem on my blog for ALMOST 1 YEAR!!! But NOBODY ON THE INTERNET has tried to solve it!!!

Is there No One on Earth or C-Space who has the skills, brains and computing power to help me?

Time is running short! Help!

The Easter Bunny

Easter Bunny Centre

P.S. I promise to buy 1 Giant Pizza, with your favorite toppings, at your favorite Pizzeria, for ANYONE who can solve my problem in time for Easter! (Shipping & Transportation not included. You got to come here or I'll buy if I come there.)

Florida's schoolkids -- after 150 years, will they finally be allowed to hear the E word?

Sure, click. It's pretty.

The Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach, Florida USA / Cox chain newspaper
Monday 18 February 2008

Faith, science collide
as state board nears
vote on evolution
by DON JORDAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

After months of fierce debate, public testimony and media attention, the state Board of Education will make its final decision Tuesday on whether to add Darwin's theory of evolution to school science standards.

An approval would overhaul standards that now refer only to biological changes over time, and instead require students to learn that evolution is the "fundamental concept underlying all of biology."

And state educators and scientists say it's about time.

The language has drawn the ire of some parents and county school boards in conservative northern Florida who take exception to the standards' emphasis on evolution and want the standards to make room for criticism of the theory or faith-based explanations for life.

The Board of Education will take up the proposed standards Tuesday in Tallahassee. Speakers will have 30 minutes to make arguments before the vote. Board members refused to comment.

The Florida Family Policy Council, which describes itself as a "pro-life, pro-family, pro-marriage educational advocacy group" affiliated with James Dobson and Focus on the Family, released a statement last week calling the standards "philosophically dogmatic" toward evolution and arguing that they "prevent competing evidence to objectively examine" evolution.

But Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, a group of parents, educators and scientists who support the proposal, said the attempt to weaken evolution by arguing that the theory's perceived flaws should be given equal consideration is just another way for opponents to "slip in" intelligent design.

Intelligent design is the concept that order and complexity in nature must be the result of rational design. Eleven county school boards across northern Florida have passed resolutions against the proposed standards, with many Baptist churches and followers helping to fuel the opposition.

The Rev. John Hawkins, a pastor at Palm Beach Baptist Church south of Atlantis, said he hasn't followed the issue but often touches on creation in his sermons. "I've never been afraid of them teaching evolution, as long as they give equal time to creationism," Hawkins said.

Although the debate has grown fierce in other regions of the state, the more liberal South Florida has remained largely unimpassioned. When asked her opinion of the new standards, Palm Beach County School Board member Carrie Hill said Wednesday that she wasn't familiar with them. "Isn't that a state issue?" Hill said. "I don't think that's coming to the board. I'd have to see it before I made a comment."

Board member Mark Hansen said he supports laws that separate religion from government but added he would "rather not comment on it unless it's before the board." The standards do not need approval from school boards to be implemented. Board members Bill Graham and Monroe Benaim support the new standards and board member Sandra Richmond said the standards need "to be left to the scientists."

Board member Debra Robinson, who told The Palm Beach Post in 2000 that schools should teach creationism with evolution, clarified her view by saying that debate should occur in school, just not in science classrooms. "We should be open to allow students to debate creationism versus evolution in a critical-thinking class," said Robinson, a doctor.

St. Lucie County School Board member Kathryn Hensley said she would prefer to see philosophical issues remain out of the science classrooms. But three of the four other members - Chairwoman Carol Hilson, John Carvelli and Troy Ingersoll - said they either want intelligent design to be taught or wouldn't object to teaching it if the community requested.

Students "have to know both sides to make up their minds," said Ingersoll, a Baptist minister.

Martin County School Board member David Anderson, the son of a preacher, said he believes in creationism but doesn't oppose evolution being taught in schools, as long as it's presented as theory, not fact. "I'm not opposed to students being exposed to information," Anderson said. "But I don't want them to say 'this is it, this is fact.' "

- 30 -

====================

The Miami Herald
Miami, Florida USA / McClatchey newspaper chain
Sunday 17 February 2008

Schools await board's
vote on evolution

by MARC CAPUTO

Nearly 150 years after Charles Darwin revolutionized biology, evolution will become required study in Florida classrooms if the state Board of Education approves new science standards Tuesday that explicitly names the ''E'' word for the first time.

The standards, which haven't been updated since 1996, were written by scientists and educators to modernize Florida's science education curriculum, which has been derided by mainstream science for years, in part for lacking explicit mention of evolution.

Now it's not just going to be mentioned. It's to be taught, from sixth grade on up, as ``the fundamental concept underlying all of biology [that] is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.''

The fact that evolution is absent from the current standards attests to the perceived weakness of science education as well as to the power of the religious right and other evolution opponents who have launched a full-scale assault on the proposed standards by tapping rank-and-file churchgoers, intelligent-design activists and a high-powered lawyer involved in the nationally watched Terri Schiavo euthanasia case.

Their refrain: The new standards need to call evolution a ''theory,'' so that evolution does not appear to be the fact that mainstream science says it is.

The outcry at so many public hearings led the Florida Department of Education to schedule an extra hour of public testimony and, late Friday, offer an alternate version of the standards that calls every theory a ''Scientific Theory'' -- whether it's about evolution or atoms -- and identifies every natural law as such.

Many want more. One expert who sat on the framers committee that formed the standards wants the board to consider his ''minority report'' to teach kids about scientific differences over evolution. Lori Muller, a mother from St. Augustine, said at a Monday public hearing in Orlando that she liked this idea. ''Just by tweaking some of the words in the standard, we can all win,'' Muller said. ``We are not supposed to be pushing any secret and biased agenda, but just making sure the children of Florida receive the best education possible.''

OPPOSING FORCES

Though science shouldn't be about politics and semantics, both forces will be more apparent Tuesday at the board of education. In North Florida, a dozen school boards have taken positions opposing evolution in the standards, while Monroe County has supported them.

Mainstream scientists are urging the board to pass the standards as drafted and reviewed by experts, including Nobel Prize laureate Harry Kroto. Kroto says the drive to call evolution just a ''theory'' or teach alternate ''theories'' is religiously -- not scientifically -- motivated by ''creationists,'' and it confuses the definition of the word theory.

In common usage, a theory is a guess. In science a theory -- like relativity -- has the weight of fact because it's a well-tested concept. While strong opinions on the issue dominate, a majority of the seven-member board of education won't say how it will vote.

The board has received thousands of phone calls, e-mails, letters and even Christmas cards. The sheer volume spotlights that Florida is the latest nationally watched flash point in evolution's history, which stretches from the Galapagos Islands that inspired Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species to the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial in Tennessee to Pennsylvania's 2005 federal Kitzmiller case.

For years, evolution has been taught in many Florida schools, but it's not clearly required teaching and doesn't have grade-by-grade benchmarks. The current standards do, however, discuss ''genetic variation'' and ``natural selection.''

Roberto Martinez, a Miami-based board member, said he'll vote to keep the proposed standards as is because he trusts the National Academy of Science and the American Association of the Advancement of Science, which praised them.

Opposite him: Tallahassee board member Donna Callaway, who told the Florida Baptist Witness she wants ''other theories'' taught.

While mainstream science recognizes no other major alternative theories to evolution, the study of cells is leading to new alternatives and supplements to Darwinian thought. Intelligent Design scientists, like biochemist Michael Behe, see the machine-like functions of cells that show such a ''purposeful arrangement of parts'' that he's echoing concepts like William Paley's 18th century ''argument of the watchmaker,'' which posited a grand designer.

Behe, an expert witness in the landmark Kitzmiller case, said some organisms are so ''irreducibly complex'' that natural selection is left wanting, and more strongly suggests that an unnamed supernatural designer crafted them. And this, Behe calls God, though he said the concept doesn't concern itself with the designer's makeup.

Evolutionist and author Kenneth R. Miller testified that Intelligent Design discouraged scientific thinking and muddies the definition of ''theory'' so that astrology could be considered science.

''Ever since Darwin, his theories have been strengthened by science and scientific discovery, not weakened by them,'' Miller said, pointing to a ''mountain of evidence'' from discoveries in antibiotics to human Chromosome 2, which shows a clear genetic link with other primates.

The judge banned intelligent design from the classroom, saying it was more religion than testable scientific theory. One of the people who helped form the new Florida science standards, Fred Cutting, a rocket engineer and Intelligent Design adherent, sought advice from the movement's think tank, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. Cutting wanted a benchmark added so students learn ``why some scientists give scientific critiques [of evolution] or models of the chemical origins of life.''

`MINORITY REPORT'

Cutting submitted the suggestions as a ''minority report'' to the education board. The framers' committee rejected it, leading Cutting -- who largely supports the proposed standards -- to say that some are such ''dogmatic'' evolution believers that ''atheism is like a religion.''

That sentiment was echoed in a letter to the education board from Schiavo lawyer David C. Gibbs, who opposes what he calls the ''dangerous'' ideas of teaching evolution as fact.

Cutting notes that supplemental theories to natural selection are emerging in the field of evolutionary-developmental biology, commonly known as ``evo-devo.'' A pioneer in the field of evo-devo, New York Medical College Professor Stuart A. Newman, said experiments show that some creatures are susceptible to quick evolutionary changes. Evo-devo proposes that multicellular organisms can dynamically change form under certain environmental conditions, producing major evolutionary jumps.

Newman took some issue with the science standards that say ''natural selection is a primary'' evolutionary force. He said it should just be listed as ''an important'' force. Of the standards overall, however, Newman said: ``I don't think they sound dogmatic. They're accurate.''

- 30 -

Miami Herald staff writer Phil Long contributed to this report.

====================

Florida Baptist Witness
Sunday 17 February 2008

Sullivan sends letter
opposing science standards

Florida Baptists’ top executive
rejects ‘theory’ compromise

by JAMES A. SMITH SR. Executive Editor

JACKSONVILLE (FBW) -– The top executive of the Florida Baptist Convention has entered the growing debate regarding proposed science standards, urging the Florida Board of Education to oppose the proposal unless the teaching of evolution includes scientific criticisms of the controversial theory.

John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, sent a letter via e-mail on Feb. 17 to all members of the Board of Education and Eric Smith, the commissioner of education, with a hard copy to follow via postal mail.

Sullivan was writing on behalf of the Convention’s State Board of Missions, which represents Florida Baptists, the largest evangelical denomination in the state with about 1,000,000 members in more than 2,000 congregations statewide.

Saying he has “serious concerns” about the way evolution is addressed in the standards, Sullivan told the Board of Education:

“We are respectfully requesting that you not approve the proposed language of the new Science Standards when considered at the February 19, 2008 Board of Education meeting.”

Citing as an example the standards’ assertion, “Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence,” Sullivan said “there is a severe lapse in the intellectual integrity” in the standards.

“It is not the desire or goal of Florida Baptists to advocate the removal of the theory of evolution from the curriculum. Nor are we suggesting the inclusion of any other theory on the origin of life,” Sullivan wrote, adding “we firmly believe there is credible evidence supporting a Creator-initiated origin of life.”

Instead, Sullivan said Florida Baptists support “an accurate and thorough presentation of the scientific evidence currently available regarding the theory of evolution. To that end, we respectfully request that you at least require the curriculum to fairly reflect the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. Additionally, the Science Standards should honor and encourage the academic freedom of teachers and students on an issue of fundamental importance and ongoing scientific controversy.”

Regarding widely reported compromise language calling evolution a theory, Sullivan said the compromise does not satisfy Florida Baptists’ concerns. “[W]e do not believe that the mere adding of the phrase ‘scientific theory of’ before the word ‘evolution’ in the standards will really fix the problem. As we have stated, this will not address the standards’ silence about teaching scientific criticisms of evolution.”

Sullivan expressed appreciation to those who drafted the proposed standards, noting that he supports “the desire of the education professional in Florida to ensure the children of this state receive an excellent science education.”

THE FULL TEXT OF SULLIVAN’S LETTER FOLLOWS

[Name and Address of Respective Commissioner:]

I am writing on behalf of the 99-members of the State Board of Missions of the Florida Baptist State Convention who represent one million Florida Baptists, the largest evangelical denomination in the state of Florida. I am sharing our collective concerns with each commission member via Email and then providing an official copy of this letter to the Florida Commissioner of Education for the record. We are respectfully requesting that you not approve the proposed language of the new Science Standards when considered at the February 19, 2008 Board of Education meeting. We have serious concerns over the way that the theory of evolution is described in the new Science Standards. We believe there is a severe lapse in the intellectual integrity of the new wording regarding the basis of the study of biology. Specifically, we are concerned about the narrative found in the Life ‘Science body of Knowledge’ section which starts with the statement: “Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.” It is not the desire or goal of Florida Baptists to advocate the removal of the theory of evolution from the curriculum. Nor are we suggesting the inclusion of any other theory on the origin of life. Although we firmly believe there is credible evidence supporting a Creator-initiated origin of life. What we are advocating at this time is an accurate and thorough presentation of the scientific evidence currently available regarding the theory of evolution. To that end, we respectfully request that you at least require the curriculum to fairly reflect the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. Additionally, the Science Standards should honor and encourage the academic freedom of teachers and students on an issue of fundamental importance and ongoing scientific controversy. And finally, we do not believe that the mere adding of the phrase “scientific theory of” before the word “evolution” in the standards will really fix the problem. As we have stated, this will not address the standards’ silence about teaching scientific criticisms of evolution. Let me thank you for your leadership and for the efforts of the team of science professionals who rewrote Florida’s Science Standards. We join you in the desire of the education professionals in Florida to ensure the children of this state receive an excellent science education.

Blessings,
T. G. “John” Sullivan,
Executive Director-Treasurer
Florida Baptist Convention
1230 Hendricks Avenue
Jacksonville, Florida

============

Our Mission

Florida Baptist Witness publishes Good News about God's work that edifies, educates, exhorts and empowers Florida Baptists to exalt God and extend His Kingdom. Our Purpose Since 1884, Florida Baptist Witness has been the weekly newspaper of the Florida Baptist State Convention. With an emphasis on features about the people and ministries of Florida Baptist churches, associations and the state convention, the paper provides a valuable tool for building cooperative ministry among individuals and churches in many diverse settings from the Panhandle to the Keys. The Witness also provides news and information about Southern Baptist ministries across the United States and around the world, as well as discussion of current issues of interest to all Christians. Our ‘Statement on Editorial Policy’ The Board of Directors of Florida Baptist Witness, as authorized by the Florida Baptist State Convention to establish policies for Florida Baptists’ newspaper, affirms this editorial policy statement to guide the executive editor concerning the mission and objectives of the Witness, and to enhance the operation of the Witness through the exercise of maximum responsible freedom while recognizing this agency’s accountability to Florida Baptists through their State Convention.

Our Staff

James A. Smith Sr. – Executive Editor John C. Hannigan – Business Manager Joni B. Hannigan – Managing Editor Eva Wolever - Assistant Editor Carolyn Nichols - Newswriter Andrea Burroughs - Graphic designer Frances Murray - Bookkeeper

Our Board of Directors

Florida Baptist Witness is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the Florida Baptist State Convention. The following are members of the Witness Board of Directors: Bob Greene, Chairman, Art Ayris, Don Buckley, John Davis, Walter Davis, Karen Green, Edwin Holton, Ron Lentine, Jeff Overton, Tim Patterson, Richard Powell, William Rice, Donald Walton, Daniel Webster, Ken Whitten

What more do you need to identify my Mysterious Island?

Certainly, click, I hope you get
more details and hints and clues.

Hmmm, this is turning out to be quite the Mysterious Island. Well, I guess that's because it's a very small island and not very much goes on there these days.

In particular, this island has been spared daily invasions of giant cruise liners, so it gets tourists, but only about 10 or (maximum) 20 at a time. (The ghastly cruise ships show up at other islands and disgorge 1000 tourists all over the place -- sometimes 2 or 3 ships at a time, so as many as 3000 tourists at a time. Like a plague of locusts with credit cards.)

Not very much goes on on Mysterious Island these days. Absolutely no crime, no gunfire, no violence, no gangs. No special segregation/separation to keep the tourists and the natives apart. No parts of the island tourists are warned to stay out of by night or day. Everywhere you go -- including the windsock airport -- you run into chickens and roosters and goats and donkeys. And little green lizards.

But 250 years ago this little island was one of the busiest merchant and commercial centers in the Caribbean, with a huge bustling harbor and stone waterfront, ships from Europe and the Americas constantly sailing in and out buying and selling all sorts of goods. My Mysterious Island was a place of wealth and prosperity.

After a century or two, all that ended instantly. One great power got very angry at my little island, sent in a naval fleet, used cannon and gunpowder to blow up the stone wharfs and docks along the waterfront, and led the merchants away in chains -- a very Biblical revenge from which the island's economy never recovered.

Even today, 230 years later, when a native speaks the name of the admiral who destroyed their prosperity, you can hear a hiss to the pronounciation and see a dark cloud spread over the speaker's face. The admiral is the island's great historical villain.

There's the "extinct" volcano. Except, as I suspected, maybe it's not excinct. Two vulcanologists I found on the Web have studied the volcano and recommend that the island prepare for the day the extinct volcano might wake up again. But so far, no hints, no itty-bitty earthquakes. But this is the volcano that created and shaped the island.

35 kilometers behind my island (photo top right) you can see another, smaller island, even more obscure and less well-known. But it's earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for a Famous Special Something that I just absolutely love, but which scares the living crap out of just about everyone who encounters it. (The woman next to me was practically weeping.) I don't know why. Perfectly safe, and they can prove it.

My island and the smaller island behind it are world-renowned SCUBA diving sites with coral reefs rich with rare marine life. Most of my hotel's guests were there for the diving. If one nice fellow is true to his word, I should be receiving some of his remarkable underwater photographs, and I'll be thrilled to post them as soon as I do.

My ancient hotel (on the beach above the white arrow) is at the bottom of a tall cliff, and a very formidable cobblestone foot path, built by and primarily used by African slaves to haul cargo from the sea up to the town, leads to the island's capital, a happy, pleasant, charming little town named for the royal family of the Euro colonial power.

Every island schoolchild has to learn the Euro language -- and then promptly stops speaking it and forgets it. Everybody on the island speaks English. But all official government business is conducted and recorded in the Euro lingo.

Slavery ended on this island six months after Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the United States.

Okay, that's enough. Somebody -- Sherlock Holmes, Herr Kommissar Berlach, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Judge Dee, Adrian Monk, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe -- ought to be able to claim the pizza and identify my Mysterious Island.

PIZZAQ! Where's Waldo? Or Bob & S.W.M.B.O.?

Sure click click all you want.

Vleeptron will be shutting down temporarily. Tomorrow is my birthday and the day after that we'll be going HERE for about a week.

Everybody claims the volcano is extinct. Look -- I know volcanos, and only a volcano knows if it's extinct. But I don't think we'll be losing much sleep about it.

Specifically we'll be at a gorgeous old inn/hotel on the coast where the red arrow is. Or pretty damn close to that.

6 slices with the toppings of your choice if you can figure out where we'll be.

Trouble in Paradise / Utopia's professional social-service providers bring back the Death Penalty / Donald Duck's first draft letter

"Surely this must be the Paradise of America."

-- Jenny Lind ("the Swedish Nightingale")

Dear *****,

Pollyanno didn't want to mention this unpleasant business over a wonderful dinner, but ... dinner [at the winter homeless shelter] was considerably delayed. Staff was requiring every guest to submit to this new policy of drug-testing. Things got rather tense and edgy, but there was no actual acting out. One familiar old guest was fuming loudly over a food matter, and I suspect it was displaced anger from this new wrinkle. I don't know if any Guest refused to submit to the test. The test was their new ticket to warmth and hot food.

This is a rough draft, and I confess may be full of factual inaccuracies. (Hair samples are now in vogue rather than urine; they may instead be demanding hair samples.)

But I would be grateful, very, if you would read this and share your thoughts with me.

***** [another volunteer], I suspect from our whispered conversation, grudgingly sees a necessity for this new policy and cited safety concerns. She has previously expressed her perception that our Guests are growing rougher and tougher, more aggressive and competitive. I haven't perceived that, but nor is it worth disagreeing with that perception.

I suspect the new policy is a condition handcuffed to state or federal grant funding, and does not reflect any authentic or documented increase in safety issues at the Shelter. If it is a government requirement, I still do not feel we should roll over and accept it without great scrutiny and much discussion. I wonder, for example, if it would pass the [religious leaders and congregations] test for appropriate civic behavior.

Your most valued gift to me over the years has been your occasional blunt candor about these kinds of things, a very necessary cold shower to bring my naive Utopian self down from Cloudcuckooland.

One way of reading this is that the only thing that's at stake is Bob's personal, private, primadonna Donald Duck sense of disgust and anger.

Another perspective is that a lot of damage and insult is being done to these my troubled neighbors, for very questionable reasons.

Please let me know your thoughts. You can retire ... but there is no escape from me and my kvetching.

Your fellow Aquarius,

Bob

======================

Dear Xxxxx,

I ask your pardon in advance for writing you, and understand that you may feel my letter is irregular and unwanted. I'm Bob Merkin, I live in Northampton, and I've volunteered, initially as the manager of the Hampshire County Interfaith Winter Homeless Shelter site in First Churches UCC & ABC, and now on the Monday night team sponsored by Northampton Friends Meeting. I cook and serve supper and assist in tasks we hope help our Guests on our team's assigned evenings.

But I feel a strong need to reach out to my fellow volunteers, my neighbors, and the spiritual community of the Shelter about a troubling and important development at the Shelter. I take full responsibility for this letter, and though I hope it will find understanding and support, I recognize its potential to be received with disapproval and disagreement.

The new regulation

In late January, S*********, the administrative agency which manages the Interfaith Shelter, began requiring every woman and man seeking food and overnight shelter to first submit to a urine test for drugs and alcohol. Future admission to the Shelter will depend on passing this test. Refusing to submit to the test immediately bars the Guest from the Shelter, and a positive result bars the Guest from subsequent admission to the Shelter.

Sobriety policy

From its founding by a coalition of churches in 1997, as an emergency response to a sudden increase of homeless women and men, the Shelter has had a clear policy forbidding the presence of alcohol and illegal drugs on site, and refusing admission to or expelling -- by police if deemed necessary -- any Guest who is substance-impaired and not fully sober. Arguably the new suspicionless mandatory admission test is a logical extension intended to reinforce this long-standing and necessary policy.

Until this moment, sobriety -- and any condition, like an episode of mental illness -- which renders a Guest a safety problem has been evaluated and dealt with by a system of respectful trust between staff, volunteers and Guests.

In practical terms, if a Guest's behavior appeared safe, sober, cooperative and non-disruptive, this has worked well enough to comfortably allow us to provide warmth, safety, bath facilities, a clean night's sleep, a hot supper and a cold breakfast. Other resources, where and when available, are also offered to Guests who conform to and respect Shelter policies and rules.

But realistically we have always understood who our Guests are. They seek and badly need this primitive winter cot shelter as the only safe alternative to spending winter nights outdoors -- a life-threatening situation, and indeed homeless deaths from exposure are typical events almost every winter in Hampshire and Franklin Counties. Preventing these winter deaths was the fundamental reason the Shelter was founded and has re-opened every winter since.

In the worst weather, the only other choice open to our Guests is "couch-surfing" from strangers, which exposes them -- women and teenagers -- to sexual predation and rape, a common experience of street life.

Consequences of the new policy

Guests who, for any reason, can't find Shelter with us, face the likelihood that their chronic respiratory illnesses will worsen, and face greater likelihood of winter death from exposure. The Shelter has twenty-two beds, and on most nights, more than that seek our Shelter. Late-comers and overflows must be turned away, and on typical bad-weather nights, staff has no realistic safe alternative shelters to refer them to.

Many guests -- young people and the mentally ill -- lack reliable skills to arrive early enough to secure an available bed. All Guests are without reliable transportation. As the homeless population keeps growing and demand outstrips capacity, turning needy Guests away is a nearly nightly occurrence.

The new policy adds a new hurdle and barrier to receiving the warm and safe winter night the church coalition Shelter was founded to provide.

Unlike Shelter bed capacity and clear, obvious "acting-out" situations, the mandatory suspicionless drug test is an arbitrary and artificial hurdle and barrier. It is not a clear, necessary response to the authentic Shelter problems we have experienced in the past.

It strikingly ignores who our Guests are. They include large numbers of chronic alcoholics, needle drug addicts, and chronically mentally ill women, men, military veterans and teenagers many of whom turn to alcohol and drugs as a natural response to the brutal experience of the streets, alleys, unlocked basements, ATM kiosks, the train tracks, and the woods. Alcohol in particular provides a false sensation of warmth, but is a likely precursor to falling asleep and succumbing to exposure.

These are the very people who will now be barred from the Shelter. The very circumstances that have brought them to our door will now be a reason to lock the door on them. The Shelter has one door, and staff controls its electric security lock.

Except for the veterans' hospital in Leeds, Hampshire County has almost no available drug or alcohol treatment for the uninsured, so very few of those who test positive for alcohol and drugs, and will now be barred from the Shelter, will find medical treatment.

Moral and ethical consequences

"The worthy poor" is an ancient but widespread community notion. The prosperous and homed are encouraged to offer scant charity to those without money or homes whom we judge to be "worthy" of our charity. We withhold and deny our charity to those we judge unworthy because of their own wicked and foolish choices. Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo excruciatingly described the cruelty at the core of this mindset in the 19th Century.

But even in our enlightened and highly educated community, it lingers. The notion of "the worthy poor" is alive and sadly common in the Five College Area.

By those blessed to have been spared these afflictions, alcoholism and drug addiction are commonly regarded as wicked and foolish personal choices which justify denying the community's charity.

But those increasingly common families from all social and economic backgrounds who have been devastated by these afflictions learn painfully that "wicked and foolish personal choices" have little realistic and no practical relevance to helping their loved ones heal and recover from these diseases.

I have been privileged and deeply moved to see some of our most troubled and hopeless Guests achieve sobriety and return to the community indistinguishable from my most stable, upright and productive neighbors. Their recovery was regularly only hindered, set backwards, and made more difficult by these cruel, simplistic and judgmental notions which they encountered in the form of rigid policies, regulations and laws -- barriers to returning to health and sober full participation in the community.

I am convinced this new barrier is the worst, cruelest, most dangerous, and most foot-shooting and anti-productive policy to ever taint the Interfaith Shelter program. I cannot believe it has the knowing and informed support and approval of the spiritual and volunteer communities which founded and continue to guide and provide vision to the Shelter.

I suspect rather it has been slipped quietly "under the radar" with little or no community discussion or scrutiny.

Dignity and Human Rights consequences

We welcomed and served our Guests with a small degree of worry, caution and wariness a decade of experience sadly taught us. We welcomed and served these women, men, veterans and teenagers -- runaways, throwaways, victims of domestic abuse -- by extending trust and treating them with scrupulous dignity. Trust and respect make possible the always fragile and nervous bridge between our Guests and the staff and the volunteers. In a sadly small but always present measure, we are neighbors breaking bread together for a few hours.

When trust and respect are assaulted by this new policy, they instantly vanish in the other direction. Every positive and human thing the volunteers and spiritual leaders have worked long and hard to achieve quickly evaporates in tension and seething resentment.

First and with perfect clarity, the Guests see that this is something We can force on Them, but they are powerless to impose any such rule on Us.

Safety consequences

In that compromised new atmosphere, the very safety the new policy claims to insure will itself insure less safety for everyone. We manifestly disrespect the Guests. The Guests will manifestly disrespect the Shelter and everyone they associate with it.

Safety at the Shelter has always been a reflection of mutual respect and mutual trust. This policy announces that no Guest can be trusted, the new admission price is a staff-supervised visit to the toilet to provide a urine sample, and any Guest who fails to comply, or fails the test, will be punished by expulsion to the streets and the elements.

It is realistic to expect that for a few, the punishment will be the death penalty.

Recommendation

We would be wise to balance our honest concerns about safety with the inevitable negative consequences of the new policy.

If the new policy reflects a new condition attached to government funding, we would be wise to consider if the funds from Beacon Hill or Washington will be worth the things we will risk and could lose. We could receive grant funds to support the Shelter, but ultimately lose the Shelter itself from the new policy's negative consequences.

Speaking only for myself, I will find it very difficult to continue to support the Shelter, or silently assent to the new policy. This fundamental change in the relationship between the Shelter and our neighbors for whom it was established may precipitate a loss of community support for the Shelter.

We have bitter experience of community and political opposition to the Shelter which on several occasions came close to shutting down the Shelter or failing to find an uncontroversial home for it.

Churches gave birth to the Shelter, and the Shelter's current home is again hosted by a house of worship. These communities obligate themselves to give the most serious consideration to all issues of ethics, morals, and human dignity and respect.

I sincerely and respectfully urge S********* immediately to suspend implementing and enforcing this policy for the rest of this winter season. Between this suspension and next October is time to invite all concerned -- S*********, volunteers, religious and civic leaders, and without fail our Guests -- to openly and fully discuss all the dimensions of this situation, and ask all the questions that ought properly be asked about the origin and details of and the necessity for the policy.

Thank you for considering this matter. It would greatly settle my heart and give me great hope for a finer and stronger Shelter future if many of my neighbors exchanged their feelings and opinions about it.

Yours,

Bob Merkin

Party Snacks / Chex Mix / M&Ms / Reese's Pieces / Disco Biscuits via PayPal & FedEx

All clicking will immediately
be detected by the
Drug Enforcement Administration.

Today's unsolicited e-mail Spam is for drugs shipped to my door via Internet shopping. I don't know where they'd come from -- Mexico seems likeliest, or Canada, but occasionally the Feds bust a big pill warehouse in the US South -- I think most recently an operation in Louisiana.

In the USA, all of these pills legally require a prescription from an M.D. physician, and even if you have a scrip from an M.D., it's some kind of low-rent crime to buy them in or from another country like Canada or Mexico and ship or smuggle them home.

Here are today's Commodities Quote Prices for these various substances when purchased on the black or grey market.

Vicodin is a low-strength but authentically effective synthetic opiate painkiller, a brand name for oxycodone/oxycontin/hydrocodone/yaddacodone. In the Appalachians where these synthetic oral opiates first exploded in illegal popularity, the press calls them Hillbilly Heroin. The fictional television misanthrope Doctor Gregory House confuses Vicodin with M&Ms or Reese's Pieces (he's in chronic leg pain).

If you live at the North Pole, or on one of the moons of Saturn, you may not have heard of Viagra or Cialis. I knew a college-age Todd who didn't need it, but secretly popped a few on Saturday night just to put on a particularly thrilling and memorable show for his female dating partners.

I'm not sure exactly what Phentermine is and I just woke up and I'm too lazy to Google it. Is it Fun? Leave A Comment. Will it make the flaccid stiff? Will it make the bald hairy? Will I want to hug and dance for 73 hours with hundreds of strangers?

Some of these Spams also offer something called Soma, which was a euphoric bliss-inducing pill of the future Aldous Huxley invented in "Brave New World." I think this non-fictional Soma is a muscle relaxant.

Of course there's the mysterious question of what the hell these pills really are when FedEx drops them off on your doorstep. The US Food & Drug Administration whips the crap out of this suspicion to try to force senior citizens who have almost no money to continue to buy all their prescription drugs only in the USA at astronomically highway robbery prices, and not get them far cheaper in Canada or Mexico. Drugs from overseas (or overtrees) for poor seniors has become a very big political hot potato. It is possible that you can spend an educational day watching 73-year-old grandmothers and grandpas being handcuffed and led away to federal holding facilities at the US border crossings from Canada and Mexico. That must be attractive.

Here are today's prices. All major credit cards and PayPal accepted.

computer-controlled Braille output / reading devices

from Wikipedia:

A refreshable Braille display or Braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying Braille characters, usually by means of raising dots through holes in a flat surface. Blind computer users who cannot use a normal computer monitor use it to read text output. Speech synthesizers are also commonly used for the same task, and a blind user may switch between the two systems or use both at the same time depending on circumstances.

Because of the complexity of producing a reliable display that will cope with daily wear and tear, these displays are expensive. Usually, only 40 or 80 Braille cells are displayed. Models with 18-40 cells exist in some notetaker devices.

On some models the position of the cursor is represented by vibrating the dots, and some models have a switch associated with each cell to move the cursor to that cell directly.

The mechanism which raises the dots uses the piezo effect of some crystals, where they expand when a voltage is applied to them. Such a crystal is connected to a lever, which in turn raises the dot. There has to be a crystal for each dot of the display, i.e eight per character.

The software that controls the display is called a screen reader. It gathers the content of the screen from the operating system, converts it into braille characters and sends it to the display. Screen readers for graphical operating systems are especially complex, because graphical elements like windows or slidebars have to be interpreted and described in text form. Modern operating systems usually have an Application Programming Interface to help screen readers obtain this information, such as MSAA for Microsoft Windows or AT-SPI for GNOME.

A new development, called the rotating-wheel Braille display, was developed in 2000 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and although a second rotating display was designed at the Leuven University in Belgium[1] both wheels are still in the process of commercialization. Braille dots are put on the edge of a spinning wheel, which allows the user to read continuously with a stationary finger while the wheel spins at a selected speed. The Braille dots are set in a simple scanning-style fashion as the dots on the wheel spins past a stationary actuator that sets the Braille characters. As a result, manufacturing complexity is greatly reduced and rotating-wheel Braille displays will be much less expensive than traditional Braille displays.

History

The base of a refreshable braille display is a pure braille terminal. There the input is performed by two sets of three keys plus a space bar (as in the Perkins Brailler), while output is via a refreshable braille display consisting of a row of electromechanical character cells, each of which can raise or lower a combination of six round-tipped pins. Other variants exist that use a conventional QWERTY keyboard for input and braille pins for output, as well as input-only and output-only devices. In 1951, David Abraham, a woodworking teacher at Perkins, created a portable braille terminal.[2]

Braille computer monitor

The Braille computer monitor has rows and columns of rectangular cells. The cells include four rows and two columns of dots that can be felt for interpretation by the user. "The pins are driven by electromechanical impact drivers and are held in position by resilient elastomeric cords. The impact drivers are carried on a bi-directional printhead which travels beneath the movable pins. An erasing mechanism is provided to positively drive the pins downwardly to erase the characters produced by the printhead." [1] The Braille computer monitor is under the United States Patent 6700553 [2].

the A-VP babysitter poll, or what's left of it / see anybody you'd trust with your kid?

Another two bite the dust. Agence-Vleeptron Presse is sad to say goodbye to the possibility of President John Edwards, because he had the finest hair and teeth of all -- better even than Mitt Romney's hair and teeth. Edwards spends more on his hair and teeth every year than I spend to keep my truck on the road, including insurance.

I don't remember a goddam thing he claims to have stood for. Utterly nothing about his candidacy was unique or interesting. The man was a Smiling Coma, his candidacy a Sleep Aid. If he had a vision for a better America -- or a worse America -- I sure never saw a glimpse of it. Not a single phrase he uttered was memorable. We were asked to vote for a Great Smile, an Eye Twinkle, and the Best Haircut in American politics.

Of course he was not unique in being an entirely superficial candidate; on the Republican side, Fred Thompson thrilled several people briefly with his folksy I'm-Sorta-Like-Ronald-Reagan TV actor avuncular face. He also stood for totally nothing that I can recall.

Bill Richardson has also dropped out of the race, and has yet to indicate which of the remaining Democratic candidates he'll support. (Half the Kennedy family just group-endorsed Obama.) Richardson may just possibly be the only presidential candidate, or president, in the last twenty years to speak another language (Spanish) fluently. In such a bunch, that makes him a regular Rocket Scientist by comparison. Imagine a president who could conduct diplomacy with Mexico without a translator -- boggles the mind.

Well, these are all that's left of the potential babysitters who'd be willing to be alone for two hours with your precious little child. See anyone you'd be willing to phone? He or she will zip right over.

Do I want this person to babysit my daughter/son/grandchild for two hours?

YES NO
[ ] [ ] John McCain

[ ] [ ] Hillary Rodham Clinton

[ ] [ ] Ron Paul

[ ] [ ] Barack Obama

[ ] [ ] Mitt Romney

[ ] [ ] Mike Huckabee

[ ] [ ] Michael Bloomberg (photo not shown)

Pizza for everybody (who commented on the PizzaQ)!

Click all you want on any image.

Okay, pizza all around, and some for myself. An astonishingly big number of Vleeptron's readers have skills and familiarity with Braille. I am not one of them. My Mom taught me the rudiments and the basic scheme, and lots of interesting stuff, but my practical knowledge of Braille is very much like my practical knowledge of packing parachutes. Who wants one of my parachutes?

But loitering around in the clinic's patient examination area, I transcribed the Braille dots on my door as best as I could, with no template (2.) to guide me.

Agence-Vleeptron Presse's Alps Correspondent has filed the very interesting top two images, which he found while searching for his social security card and a John Coltrane CD. They are souvenirs of his job at a school for the blind.

At the bottom, back to the trouble with the PizzaQ. I could fix it simply. All I have to do is drive 25 miles south, and ask the clinic receptionist if it would be okay if I wandered back to the examining rooms with my digital camera. I'm sure she'll be happy to accomodate me.

But until then ... surprisingly, the guesses have been pretty goddam close to what the sign is supposed to say. It was announcing that this is Exam Room B3, or 3B, or something like that. Everybody just shut up for a couple of months until my next appointment, to which I will smuggle in my digital camera, and settle this mess once and for all.

But indeed, this is the most compressed of Braille's three "tiers." It's on every door as a blind patient wanders unsupervised through the hall trying to find a specific exam room. Works perfectly, and a lot of sight-challenged people would indeed prefer finding their way this way rather than be guided by a sighted person.

I finally bought the world's stupidest chess set! Wheeeee!

This thing has been staring at me and whispering "Buy Me, Bob!" and been gathering dust on a bottom shelf at the Stop & Shop for three years now. Nobody wants this piece of crap.

If you love chess, you would never buy a chess set like this, and every chessplayer on Earth would laugh at you and call you a schmuck and an asshole.

If you love baseball ... well, uhhh, you don't know how to play chess and would never spend money on a chess set anyway. You would use the $30 to buy Budweiser or Miller.

But my birthday's almost here and I saw it again and this time I just broke down and spent the money. S.W.M.B.O. said that was sweet and told me to display it in my weird office.

I went to college in the Bronx and to get to school from Manhattan rode the elevated subway past Yankee Stadium. They put a gap in the stadium wall so subway riders passing by can see the field for about six seconds. One evening I was riding back to school and looked through the gap straight at The Pope, who was standing on 2nd base and conducting a prayer. He looked straight back at me. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, own Yankee Stadium, so I guess they gave the Pope a discount to use it that night.

I don't know why but I have the feeling that if I try to play chess with this piece of crap, the games will just be really crappy. These jerks don't know how to play chess. I captured your catcher! Your manager's in check! You touched your pitcher! Now you have to move him!