Lee.org

I had a fun altercation on the ARL list today. In response to the override failing, Paul Schlichtman (President-Elect, Massachusetts Association of School Committees) introduced a bill in the MA House of Representatives (not under his own name of course). It would allow the 2.5% per year limit on MA government tax increases to be gotten around if the spending was for schools.

I wrote to the list:

Didn’t the override vote fail? So what is Override v2.0 doing in the House, besides taking up legislators’ time?

His terse response:

Mr. Sonko, you can write your legislators, though this is not a hotly debated issue in Trenton.

(his implication was: You don’t live in Arlington. You are irrelevant. Go away.)

So I turned on the heat and closed the windows:

We’re not talking about Trenton, we’re talking about Arlington. Paul, you seem to have a stake in this so I’ll ask you directly: why is is Override v2.0 in the House at all? Wasn’t the override defeated?

I suppose that your .sig. goes a significant way toward answering my questions.
>Paul Schlichtman
>President-Elect, Massachusetts Association of School Committees
>Vice-Chair, Arlington School Committee
>Population 42,389, 5.05 sq. mi., enrollment 4,470
>http://www.schlichtman.org & http://www.arlington-mass.com

I’ve been re-reading the proposed law. Although I’m not a legislator, it looks like it’s been designed to replace school money that “should” have come from the state, but didn’t… and instituting a local tax to replace that money.

But the whole idea of 2.5 is to prevent government sprawl by causing a budget crunch if government grows too fast. This budget crunch was directly caused by 2.5. In this case, schools were hit hardest. Local government could have moved a column of numbers, saving the schools and causing problems with police, fire, and library. SOMETHING had to give and it did. 2.5 did it’s job.

—————
So next year, when the police department wants a new cruiser, all the mayor has to do is take the money out of schools, declare a school budget emergency, raise taxes (via the new law), and bingo, a new cruiser.

Now I’ll grant that the new law can only be abused so much… “the difference between the minimum required contribution and the the town’s local contribution in 1993.” But this year, it can be said that the level of abuse would top $6 million dollars. That’s a lot of cruisers.
—————

That doesn’t sit well with me.

So I ask again:
why is is Override v2.0 in the House at all? Wasn’t the override defeated?

My source material:

Paul’s message:
> Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in
> General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
>
> Paragraph (f) of section 21C of chapter 59 of the General Laws as
> appearing in the 2000 Official Edition is hereby amended by adding
> after the word “revenue”, in line 58, the following words:- plus the
> difference between the minimum required local contribution prescribed
> under chapter 70 for the current fiscal year and the municipality’s
> local contribution in fiscal year nineteen hundred and ninety-three as
> defined in chapter 70 section 2.

The current laws
http://www.state.ma.us/legis/laws/mgl/59-21C.htm
http://www.state.ma.us/legis/laws/mgl/gl-70-toc.htm

Paul turned on the Flame Thrower (in a closed room! The fool!):

Dear Mr. Sonko:

The reason you should be talking Trenton is that you appear to be a resident of the State of New Jersey. According to the journal on your website, you are complaining that you do not qualify to get a teachers’ certificate in New Jersey. (6/19/2003). Your journal also references a callback from Assemblywoman Connie Myers (a Republican from the 23rd district in Hunterdon County NJ). You state on March 26, 2003 that you joined the Hackettstown NJ Chess Club.

I do not think you have any connection to the Town of Arlington, except for the link to one Travis James Ignatius Corcoran on your friends page, fourth line:
http://www.lee.org/friends/index.html
Travis also has you at the top of his list of friends, described as, “A friend of the highest caliber. I’ve known Lee since fourth grade. He was two years older than me then. He still is. Grrrrrrrr..”
http://www.tjic.com/friends.php

According to your politics page, you are a Libertarian. Thus, you seem to be seeking to inject your political philosophy into a town and a state in which you do not reside.
http://www.lee.org/politics/index.html

So, I repeat, I suggest if you have comments on state legislation, you should feel free to call Assemblywoman Connie Myers, Assemblyman Michael Doherty, and Senator Leonard Lance; you can reach them in Trenton. Join the Hackettstown e-list. And have a nice life down there in the Garden State.

Silly Paul, I was already wearing my asbestos underwear from my last post!

>you appear to be a resident of the State of New Jersey.

I am at that.

Being a NJ resident bars me from voting in Arlington but does not bar me from discussing Arlington politics, Arlington bug spray, or whatnot.

My posts on the list have been and continue to be on-topic. I refer to the list’s FAQ, “…information relevant to the residents of Arlington, Mass…”. I also believe my posts to be reasonably well informed. If you disagree, please say so.

I think that your attempt at character assassination isn’t going so well.

Since you’ve taken the time to research my journal (found at http://www.lee.org/journal), cross reference my friendship with TJIC, and post a vitriolic letter about me, could also please take the time to answer my first question?

——————
Paul, didn’t the override vote fail? So what is Override v2.0 doing in the House?
——————

In my further considerations about House 1215, it occurs to me that this would be the equivilant of a PERMANENT override for EVERY town in Massachusetts when it comes to school budgets. Furthermore, it seems that it opens a loophole that takes a major bite out of 2.5. That’s casting a pretty wide net, isn’t it? Paul, could you please address those potential issues?

If 2.5 is so bad, then maybe a vote to repeal it should be put up.

lee

I followed up a little while later with a more personal message to the list. The last part is quite introspective:

Paul, I’d like to answer the more comments you made about me in your post:

>According to the journal on your website, you are complaining that you
>do not qualify to get a teachers’ certificate in New Jersey. (6/19/2003)

Yup. it’s been a career changing nightmare for me for the last year and a half.

>Your journal also references a callback from
>Assemblywoman Connie Myers (a Republican from the 23rd district in
>Hunterdon County NJ).

Actually, she’s an Assemblywoman in Warren County but I see how her homepage might make you think otherwise.

>According to your politics page, you are a Libertarian. Thus, you seem
>to be seeking to inject your political philosophy into a town and a
>state in which you do not reside.
>http://www.lee.org/politics/index.html

I don’t understand the connection that you make. “Thus” doesn’t make any sense in your argument. But I’ll go ahead and explain a little bit about my Libertarianism….
As my page says, I call myself a “soft libertarian”. When looking at a situation, I find myself keeping in mind the philosophical bent of libertarian thinking. I’m definitely not a strict Democrat or Republican. Mostly because falling into either camp picks up way too much baggage… I.E. being Republican means being pro-life and pro-death penalty, two contradictory things… and not for any solid reasoning. I like the “feel” of libertarianism added to the mix of political thought. It helps me think out my position on issues. I use libertarian thought as a tool to carefully think out my position on issues. But I definitely would not want to live in a country completely controlled by a libertarian government!

I could write a lot more about this, but again, as my politics page says, “I could talk for a while about this but I’ve got more important things to do than argue over the internet. I’d rather yell at you in person.”

>I do not think you have any connection to the Town of Arlington

I left my heart in Arlington. It’s a long story going back to 1987 when I started Tufts and found myself in proximity to some of the most lovely and historic cities in the country. Several friends live (or lived) there, a very serious (ex-) girlfriend lived on Cleveland street. Arlington has always been a state of mind for me. It’s important. I left Boston a few years ago but I still reminisce about it and think about going back. I think the main reason I haven’t is that there are too many ghosts of my past that reside there. I want to live in Boston but I can’t. ARL lets me connect with Arlington without the discomfort of staring-down those ghosts every day.

lee

So far, the feedback on the list has been a mix of positive and negative. I received a private message from someone saying:

I appreciate you pursuing an explanation from Paul. I am anxious to hear his answer.

It’s very nice to hear that my words are valuable! I thanked the author profusely. Another poster (Lori Vollers Uhland) wrote to the list saying that he hadn’t dissed me. Yea, whatever. And another (Jerri Newman) said, because I was geographically challenged, “I am not interested in this or anything else you have to say”. Yea, whatever.

I can probably become a teacher in Florida. Of course, the starting salary sucks. $25k to start, $38k average. NJ would have been $31k starting, $52k average.

I went to the movies Wednesday night. I saw the first 35 minutes of “2 Fast 2 Furious“. It was 2 brainless 2 boring. The producer/mechanic forgot that they needed a script, forgot that a buddy film needs buddies, a cops and robbers film needs cops (and robbers), a good-guy bad-guy movie needs good guys AND bad guys. Either the movie was playing to a fantastically advanced moral and ethical subtext, or maybe it was just stupid. I can only watch a speedometer rev from 100 to 160 in Furious-vision so many times before my brain goes numb. (Do these guys -ever- decelerate?) I’d like to live in their world; No matter how fast you’re driving, or even if you’re not driving at all, all you have to do to underscore your point is is downshift forcefully.

I walked out of 2 Fast 2 Furious and in on Dumb and Dumberer. The title doesn’t disappoint. Except for some ridiculousness issues, it was moderately mindlessly funny. An example of ridiculousness: Harry smeared chocolate all over a bathroom and the owner thought it was poop. A few scenes later, the supposedly intelligent owner had cleaned it up but apparently not figured out that it wasn’t poop. But hey, it IS called “Dumb and Dumberer”…

I also snuck in on the last 10 minutes of Bruce Almighty. Sappy, stupid. And I saw the last 20 minutes of Finding Nemo. I couldn’t get a good read on the film from just the ending… Disneyesque?

Here is a great take on The Matrix Reloaded. From http://ter.air0day.com/index.php?script=matrixreloaded. Thanks to jwz for the pointer.

Last night I went to the New Pathways for Teaching information session. I was told in no uncertain terms from the head of the program that in order for me to get a teachers certificate in New Jersey with my low college GPA, I will first need to get a master’s degree.

I’m lost.

I refuse to spend $30,000 and 1 1/2 years taking classes to prove to do something that I am already completely qualified to do. It’s the most ludicrous application fee in history: $30k and a 18 months in jail. I think of it as jail because It’s time spent doing something I have absolutely no interest in doing right now.

I would be happy to test-out of any of these requirements. But as it stands, the best I could possibly do is to ace the GRE, Miller Analogy and Praxis II. This -might- get me into a grad school. The trouble I have with this is that if I -do- ace those tests, then it’s definitive proof that I -don’t- need to spend my time and money going to school. Catch 22.

I am very unhappy and lost.

OUCH! From YourZagi.com and http://www.wrightbrothersrc.com

The new spam filter is working out great. I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be, but you know what I mean.

A couple months ago I saw Henry Rollins in concert. I took some notes about his show but never bothered to put them in my journal. Here you go:

“Ramones Fans can’t kill each other. Here’s what you do. Give the Israeli army the first two albums and let them groove to it for a while. Then give the Palestinians the second two albums and let ’em enjoy it. Then one day, they’ll be on the front and one of the Israelis will hear something on the other side. He’ll say, “Hey do you hear that? It sounds like the Ramones but it’s not any album that I’ve ever heard! I’m gonna go check it out. Here, hold my gun.””

[note: blowing a “P” into a microphone makes that cool “poof” noise that you hear in the Jack Flanders audiotapes. Jack Flanders and Ruby R000000000000L!!!]

He’s done 106 shows a year for the last 23 years. Wow.

[I’ve said this somewhere in my journal… it’s nice that Henry agrees] “Bush isn’t connected with his material. That smile that bunches up in the corner of his mouth…. he’s pretending to be human.” [He then went into a thing about his awful pacing as well :-) ]

You know, the more I stare at speed 400 brushless motors, the less I think I want one. It basically comes down to:brushed vs. brushless speed 400 motor

• Brushless is 20% more efficient (making for potentially 20% longer flights)
• Brushless is $200 ($100 motor, $100 ESC), brushed is $40 ($10 motor, $30 ESC)
• Brushless provides 2x the thrust per lb of motor (drawing about 1.6x the amperage…) (average 400 brushed motor is about 3 oz) giving me the opportunity to push the throttle such that I’ll use up the battery really darn quick.
• top level flight speed goes from about 50 mph to about 70 mph
• Brushless improves powered handling considerably

I’m not into electrics for super vertical performance. I’d switch to .90cc glow engines for that. So I’ve been looking around and I’ve got a lot of other options besides plunking down $200…   I could switch to a high performance speed 480 motor, an 8″ x 4.5″ prop and get 3/4 of the way toward a brushless for under $20. Hobby Lobby reference. Or a Rocket 400… or the new Zagi Speed 400 for $10. I’ve got a lot of options that cost a heck of a lot less than $200. Hey, $200 would get me a lot of Estes model rocket engines….

I’ve started ripping the old covering off the plane.

Here’s another weapon in the war against spam. In the last year I’ve started receiving a lot of spam that Spamkiller hasn’t been able to filter. These spams look like garbage when viewed in Spamkiller. I’ll see garbage like this in the body of the message: DQoNCjxNRVRBIEhUVFAtRVFVSVY9IkNvbnRlbnQtVHlwZSIgQ09OVEV…

Well, what the spammers are doing is encoding the messages in Base 64. Outlook knows how to decode Base 64 but Spamkiller doesn’t.

Here’s how I set up filters to stop this type of spam. I used this very helpful site to encode a couple bits of text into Base 64 and then I stuck those encoded bits into Spamkiller’s killfile.

More specifically, I encoded some very popular strings, like “a href=http://” and made those into Spamkiller filters. So, in this example, if the email isn’t in my don’t-kill file, it’s HTML based, encoded in Base 64, and has a hyperlink, Spamkiller will kill the message. This system is case-sensitive so I had to add a bunch more filters to cover other combinations of cases…

Regular Expression for a href=”http://
a href=”http:// converts to YSBocmVmPSJodHRwOi8v
href=”http: converts to IGhyZWY9Imh0dHA6L
href=”http:/ converts to aHJlZj0iaHR0cDovL

Regular Expression for A HREF=”http://
A HREF=”http:// converts to QSBIUkVGPSJodHRwOi8v
HREF=”http: converts to IEhSRUY9Imh0dHA6L
HREF=”http:/ converts to SFJFRj0iaHR0cDovL

Regular Expression for a href=http://
a href=http: converts to YSBocmVmPWh0dHA6L
href=http:/ converts to IGhyZWY9aHR0cDovL
href=http:// converts to aHJlZj1odHRwOi8v

Regular Expression for A HREF=http://
A HREF=http: converts to QSBIUkVGPWh0dHA6L
HREF=http:/ converts to IEhSRUY9aHR0cDovL
HREF=http:// converts to SFJFRj1odHRwOi8v

So, in case it’s not clear, I went into Spamkiller and, using the Advanced… button I created 12 Message Text Filters that look like this the photo on the right.

Of course, the war will continue to escalate. There are other obfuscation techniques that this technique doesn’t prevent.

I still believe that the best way to stop spam is to legislate it away. This worked with spam faxes and it can work with spam email.

Joy.

Trying to set up an scp server on my Windows 2000 machine is reminding me why I got out of using linux. People are ecstatic about writing supercharged, amazing tools that can help you conquer the world, but they don’t ever bother to tell you where the frigging “start” button is!!

My mom isn’t the best pilot. How do I know this? This is how I know:

Don’t let it be said that the Zagi flying wing is indestructible. I brought my mom, dad and niece out to the airfield yesterday. After a couple minutes of flight (they oo-ed and ahh-ed in all the right places), my mom wanted to try her hand at it. So I gave her a quick lesson, brought the plane up to 200 feet (what I thought to be “2 mistakes high”) and handed her the controls. She promptly pointed the nose down and gave it full throttle. Three seconds later, there was a 5″ deep hole in the ground. It was astounding. RIP Lee’s Zagi version 1.0

Dad and I have been having a good time joking about it. We’re saying that we should get her a purple heart. Or maybe she should have watched more of my dad’s war TV shows before taking to the air. She just keeps repeating how she’s so sorry and will never fly it again.. never ever ever. But I struck a deal with her. I’ll feel better about it if she learns how to fly and takes the controls just one more time. After all, we can’t have her grieving about some silly little plane forever. It also doesn’t hurt that she volunteered to pay for the damage. That last bit means I’ll be rebuilding the plane to version 1.1 :-). I was never happy with my Monocote job. So I’ll send away for new trays, maybe a new motor (brushless?? hmm? hmm?) and we’ll be back in the air in a month or two. Actually, speaking of indestructibility….. The only things I lost in the crash were the motor tray and canopy. The entire rest of the plane is still intact! wing, winglets, elevons… The motor, receiver, and servos are still good too. It’s the loss of the motor tray that “killed” the plane. That’s because I have to rip out a lot to fix it the motor tray. And if I’m going to rip out so much, then I want to do a total overhaul.

The Cosel K150A 12 volt, 13 amp power supply came in the mail today. I hooked up wires, plugged it in and it worked right out of the box. :-) I’m very happy to be rid of my Rube Goldberg battery charging contraption. It used to go:Car battery charger set on 2 amp manual charge
–> block of UPS batteries
–> Astro charger
–> nicads

The UPS batteries were there as a power sink/capacitor because they say that a car charger doesn’t have an even enough output to be trusted going straight into an electronics device (I believe them)

I’d have to watch the state of charge on the UPS batteries or badness would ensue. And when done, unplug the whole thing. To boot, the lead-acids were on their way out. I charged them individually last night and today 2 are at 6.39 volts, 2 at 6.29 volts. Maybe I’ll keep 2 of the lead-acids as field-chargers.

But now, when I’m home, I can “Set it, and forget it!”

————————

I -was- going to wish for An Astro 020 brushless motor with controller from Atlanta Hobby for Christmas but after looking into motor and prop efficiencies (see my Flying Tips page) I’m not exactly sure which motor I want. I’ll have to research it some more.