Monthly Archives: March 2005

Right to Live and Right to Die

Freedom

Thus far, I have avoided commenting on the Terry Shiavo case, but I feel that it is time to do so.

First, the media has done an astoundingly poor job of covering this. For a very interesting, and needed, backgrounder, look here. I am amazed at how often the media portrays the case as hinging on the word of the husband. It, in fact, never did; several more of Terry’s relatives had separate conversations with her that agreed with Michael’s interpretation. From the court’s findings of fact:

Also the statements she[Terri] made in the presence of Scott Schiavo at the funeral luncheon for his grandmother that “if I ever go like that just let go. Don’t leave me there. I don’t want to be kept alive on a machine,” and to Joan Schiavo following a television movie in which a man following an accident was in a coma to the effect that she wanted it stated in her will that she would want the tubes and everything taken out if that ever happened to her are likewise reflective of this intent. The court specifically finds that these statements are Terri Schiavo’s oral declarations concerning her intention as to what she would want done under the present circumstances and the testimony regarding such oral declarations is reliable, is creditable and rises to the level of clear and convincing evidence to this court.

So we have a case where three relatives recalled direct statements from Terri expressing her wishes.

We have heard plenty of comment from people saying that the judiciary is violating Terri’s right to life by ordering the feeding tube removed. I don’t think so; the evidence shows that she didn’t want to live with a feeding tube.

If the courts decided the case any other way, it would be violating her right to death. Or, put another way, the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the words of the founders of this nation. Terri apparently believed that living hooked up to a machine was no life at all, and if we deprive her of the ability to make these decisions about herself, we have also deprived her of her own personal liberty — made her a prisoner in her own body, subject to the will of others.

I am particularly dismayed that Jesse Jackson and other religious people once again found it necessary to intervene on the wrong side of freedom in this case. Perhaps they don’t agree with this sort of end-of-life decision. But plenty of people make these decisions and they should have the right to do so. The idea of not forcing one’s will upon others seems to be a core Christian one to me, at least. Depriving someone of their liberty is an act this society usually exercises only regarding criminals, not hospice patients.

For Terri’s parents, who tried so hard to override her will — even if they were motivated by their concern for her — this was a deeply selfish act for which they should not be proud.

I have no idea what her husband’s motives are, but even if they were evil, his motives alone don’t account for the other corroborating testimony given by Terri’s other relatives.

Today’s Reading + Perl Community

General, Programming

Cliff’s memories of Easter are a great read.

A study showing that a significant number of people exhibit violence towards their computer when it malfunctions, and another significant number of people attempt to sweet-talk it.

Shapr posted a link to the extremeperl mailing list. I found this post on the value of learning languages to be insightful.

Along a similar line, there’s an intriguing post on The Sequence from a Perl hacker looking at the Haskell community. I think he’s right.

These Perl people are really impressing me lately. My respect for the Perl commnuity has really shot upwards lately. And I am similarly disappointed in many of the directions Python is taking these days. Nice time to be using Haskell :-)

Haskell: The Humbling Language

Programming

Usually when I learn a new programming language, I’ll hang out on its mailing lists and IRC channels, learning from the answers given to other people’s questions, and asking my own. After a month or two, I usually feel fairly good with my abilities; that I could answer most of the questions, and understand most of the questions.

Well, I’ve been using Haskell for about 6 months now. I really like Haskell, and it’s a great language to use, and it’s already my preferred language.

But here’s what’s unique about Haskell. The more I use it, and the more I participate with the Haskell community, the more I realize just how much there is that I could learn. And it seems that I’m not alone with that feeling.

I wonder why Haskell is unique this way.

Asterisk is Great

Reviews, Uncategorized

I recently wrote about Asterisk, the Free Software PBX. Well, I’ve completed the first stage of installation in our home and must say this is the most fun piece of technology I’ve played with since MythTV :-)

Here’s what we now have in our home:

  • Local calls can be dialed like usual. By default, they will use a landline (aka PSTN line). If the line is in use, they’ll be routed over the Internet at a cost of 1.2 cents per minute.
  • Long-distance calls can be dialed like usual. By default, they’ll use an Internet VOIP provider at a cost of 1.2 cents per minute. If the Internet or the provider is down, they’ll fall back to our landline, at the usual cost of 7 cents per minute.
  • Toll-free calls can be dialed like usual, too. By default, they’ll route over the Internet for free using FWD, but if that’s down, they’ll fall back to the landline.
  • Almost every phone in the house will have its own unique extension number. These all start with “11” so they don’t conflict with any public telephone number. So, no more running up or down two flights of stairs to ask a question.
  • The IP phones in the house can also act as intercoms; when a special extension is dialed, they will ring once, then automatically go into speakerphone mode.
  • We have call forwarding, 3-way calling, etc. without having to pay the usual high telco rates for these services.
  • Call transfer is nice if one of us answers the phone, but the person wants to talk to the other person, who is in a different room. (And callers get to hear some nice music on hold while they’re being transferred.)
  • To a regular caller, it sounds like we have an answering machine if we don’t answer. In reality, they are leaving a message on Asterisk’s voicemail system. The system e-mails us the audio message as an attachment as soon as the person is done recording the message. Also, an indicator lights up on every digital phone in the house. We can check the voicemail from any phone, in our house or not, using a passcode — or by listening to the attachment.
  • By physically taking our IP phone to any broadband Ethernet port, we can make and receive calls on it almost like usual. Yes, if we take the phone to Indiana, and someone calls our Kanas number, phones in both Kansas and Indiana would ring.
  • Emergency calls are routed over the landline like usual. In the future, I will set it up so that dialing 911 automatically disconnects anybody that’s using the landline, so the emergency services can be contacted immediately.
  • All analog phones are automatically connected to the normal landline in the event of a power or network failure.
  • “Ring all phones” feature that essentially simulates an incoming call
  • Caller ID everywhere, both for internal extensions and for calls coming in from outside
  • All sorts of other fun stuff I haven’t even tried yet…

Read on for a description of how it all works, and some hardware and vendor reviews…

At the center of it all is Asterisk. Asterisk is responsible for receiving and routing all calls, the fallback plans, etc. It’s a very powerful and amazing piece of software.

Our digital phones are Sipura SPA-841 models. These are amazing phones, usually selling at $85. The Voxilla Store has the best deal with free shipping, plus excellent service. The SPA-841 comes with one Ethernet port and a modern-looking digital interface. It supports all the bells & whistles, such as 2 lines, call forwarding, call history, personal directories, speakerphones, distinctive ring tones, etc. It’s also web-configurable, or can be configured via TFTP and XML files (very very nice if you have more than one!) The breadth of the configuration of these phon is just amazing.

Our analog telephone adapter (ATA) is a Sipura SPA-3000 (also with a good deal at Voxilla). This nifty little gadget sells for about $100 and has one ethernet port and two analog telephone ports. One of the analog phone ports is to be connected to the landline (PSTN) connection from your phone company. The other port provides line voltage, dialtone, ring voltage, etc. to phones in your house — that is, it simulates the phone company to them. So, your analog phones can dial VOIP numbers — and get the benefit of call routing over the Internet and the like — all without having to invest in more-expensive digital phones. We are keeping our cordless analog phone (cordless IP phones are not very good yet), and a couple in infrequently-used by nice-to-have locations.

The PSTN connection lets you use VOIP to dial out. In our case, Asterisk is the one doing the dialing out, so the PSTN connection is controlled completely by Asterisk.

One super-nice feature of the SPA-3000 is that it has an option to bridge the two ports together in the event of power loss or if it loses contact with the Asterisk server. This is great so your analog phones keep working even in an emergency situation. Some people might disable this, though, because of the shock of having long distance suddenly cost 6 times more than usual :-)

The next stage in the project is to run some network cabling in the house so we can deploy an additional digital phone and relocate the server and ATA equipment to a more convenient location. Cat5ECableGuy has some great deals on jacks and cable. Service seems to be good, too; will let you know when my order arrives.

I also have a Sipura SPA-1001 (single-line ATA for use with analog phones) that I’ll be deploying once the cabling has arrived. That will give the kitchen phone its own extension separate from all the others.

I have had a few hitches along the way. I first tried a cheapo Wildcat X100p clone from ebay. I found it to be unstable and cause asterisk crashes on my Alpha. The SPA-3000 is working much better.

The other hitch relates to disconnect supervision, which my telco doesn’t provide. That means there’s no good way for a machine to determine that the remote party has hung up the line. The SPA-3000 for some reason can’t detect the off-hook warning tone either, but I have some workarounds going.

I also found that multiple simultaneous uploads on my DSL link would flood the transmit queue and cause latency to be unacceptably high for VOIP to work. After some tweaking with the Linux traffic shaper and ToS bits in Asterisk, I think I’ve got that nicely worked out.

I purchased some of my early equipment from Telephonyware. Decent prices, but they appear to have lied about the shipping date, and didn’t return my e-mail asking about it. VOIPSupply had much faster shipping, but also really charges a lot for shipping & handling. Voxilla has good rates and fast service, so I’m using them now.

That’s a lot for one post… more to come next week.

Revenge of the Smelly Ducting

General

For about a month now, we’ve had this odd odor in our house. It started out in our laundry room, on the east end of our main floor. Then we noticed it in our bedroom, on the west end of our 2nd floor. Since then, we’ve noticed it in almost every room in the house on different days, but never all over at once. It’s always one or two rooms, but they could be on opposite ends of the house.

I few weeks ago, I realized that the smell was coming from the furnace vents. After some experimentation, I noticed that running the furnace made the smell go away. It got worse when the temperatures were warmer, and the furnace wasn’t running.

So we called out our local heating/plumber guy. After they were out here three times, they did find a couple of problems with our furnace, but no gas leaks or anything that could explain the smell — which, by the way, three different employees couldn’t identify. They even left an air charting unit with us, which ruled out things like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates. It did helpfully notice that there were odors, but didn’t tell us what they were.

So here we are, still smelling this…. smell. It defies categorization. It mystefies experts. Something like a cross between dirty laundry, mold, and a skunk. And yet…. none of those, either. It’s weird.

I’ve taken to closing the vents in our bedroom before turning in for the night if the smell is bad in the evening.

So, I’m appealing to all the bloggers out there for suggestions, short of selling the place and moving to town :-)

Oh, and this is not the first time we’ve had odor problems here. However, the cause the first time was immediately apparent and thus could be eventually dealt with :-)

Memories of Alvin Goerzen

General

I read this at the memorial service for Alvin Goerzen on March 23, 2005.

For us grandchildren, our earliest memories of Grandpa are of visiting
him at his farm. It was always fun to be there. Family gatherings
were usually there, and he always made delicious food. Peter, James,
and I remember the Zwiebach, borscht, and monster cookies the most.
If any of these things were ever missing from a meal, I’d be
disappointed, even though the food was still great.

The family usually was at Grandpa’s place for Christmas. Grandpa’s
tree had the wheat-weaving ornaments that Grandma Goerzen made. I
don’t remember her, but I always admired those ornaments.

After dinner, we’d have our gift exchange. We’d all get our Christmas
presents, and then after it was all over, Grandpa would get a sly
smile and a little twinkle in his eye. He had “extra” presents for
each of us grandkids every year. No matter how nice the other
presents were, Grandpa’s always seemed extra special.

There were lots of things to do at Grandpa’s place. He kept toy
tractors and vehicles in a closet off his living room. They were
probably 30 years old, but they still worked fine. He also had a
large supply of board games. But the most unique thing was his air
hockey table. It was always great fun to play a game of air hockey
with Grandpa.

We have lots of memories of Grandpa’s yard and farm, too. The yard
was always good for exploring — an old implement here or there, or an
old vehicle. Or maybe some wasps if you look in the wrong place. I
never got stung, but I still remember what places to avoid because of
wasps or bees.

I remember the day I was exploring behind some buildings and found an
old John Deere tractor. I had heard people talk about this tractor,
but I couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. It seemed almost like
a legend to me, and I was quite excited to actually find it.

Grandpa’s creek at the edge of his pasture was good for fishing and
camping. The cows didn’t seem to mind the visitors, and sometimes
came surprisingly close.

Grandpa liked to be a bit of a tease. He’d greet us with “Hi, Skeezix”
when we’d arrive at his place, and he often called me Hanschen.

Grandpa was always interested in our lives. He was at all our school
concerts, recitals, and plays. Last fall, Terah had been sick, and
just as she was getting better, Grandpa was taken to intensive care.
We visited him there, and it was the first time he had seen Terah
since she was sick.

Grandpa looked asleep when we got there. Terah said “hi” and started
to ask him how he was doing. He immediately interrupted her. In the
strongest voice I heard from him in quite awhile, he said, “Terah, how
are you?” Grandpa refused discuss how he was doing until he was
completely sure that Terah was OK. It’s a special feeling to know how
deeply he cared about us.

Grandpa always wanted visitors, even when his illnesses made it
difficult. Terah and I often visited him after church on Sundays. He
wanted to know how we were doing, what happened in church, and might
tell us how he was doing if we asked. He sure wouldn’t say anything
if he thought it might interfere with hearing about us, though.

Sometimes, it was difficult for him to talk, but every time, he made
sure to say thank you for visiting. That made us feel special, too.

Terah remembers another hospital visit. Even though Grandpa looked
asleep, she held his hand and talked to him for awhile. When she said
goodbye, Grandpa managed to open his eyes for a moment and thank her
for visiting.

Last Thursday, Terah visited Grandpa at Bethesda. She called me at
work to tell me that Grandpa didn’t say “thank you”. She didn’t have
to tell me what that meant.

We hurried back to Bethesda that evening. Grandpa was still not doing
well. He said a few words when we got there, but by the end of our
visit, he was too tired to thank us for visiting.

That time, I was the one that said “thank you”. I thanked him for
letting us visit him so many times. He brightened all our lives.

Today’s Reading

Uncategorized

Two articles from Slashdot on patent reform. Microsoft seems to be one of the guud guys here, ironically enough. First, there’s an article about their general counsel lecturing about patent reform, suggesting steps to make it easier to comment on patent submissions and more difficult to obtain win about a patent infringement in court. An InfoWorld story goes on about similar things.

Next, a story about women leaving IT. Apparently, women have been leaving the sector quite rapidly. The story points to quite a few potential reasons. Though they all would have seemed to be equally valid 5 years ago, and don’t really explain why things are worse now.

Here’s a Guardian article looking back on the tech bubble burst. 5 years ago today marked the highpoint on the Nasdaq.

GHC 6.4 (Haskell compiler) was released yesterday. WOOHOO! More details in my post on The Haskell Sequence.

Finally, two Asterisk-related articles from O’Reilly: part 1 and part 2.