OpenSUSE 11.1/Vista/Ubuntu Part 1: Choosing and Installing OpenSUSE

I've decided to write about my usage of OpenSUSE and Vista on my new machine. In this post I'll discuss choosing and installing OpenSUSE.

Introduction: I Want 64 Bits

When I got my new dual core, 2.53 GHz laptop with 4GB of RAM, it came with a 32 bit operating system: Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Now nearly nobody really needs a 64 bit operating system these days, not yet. But since I need simultaneous access to multiple operating systems, short of carrying more than one notebook around, the simplest answer is to use virtual machines. Modern operating systems are RAM hungry, so to run these multiple virtual machines, I plan on bringing the RAM up to 8GB as soon as it becomes less than insanely expensive. For now 4GB of RAM will be enough.

Now I should note here that the copy of Vista as installed on this machine dutifully reports all 4GB of RAM, which normally 32 bit Vista does not. 32 bit Vista normally can't use all 4GB of RAM because it is using some of that address space for other things. I was surprised to see all 4GB available, and double checking I confirmed that it was, indeed 32 bit Vista. It must be the case that Vista has been configured with PAE (Processor Address Extension) enabled. This extends the virtual address space, leaving room in the address space for all the physical RAM and Vista's other memory address uses. So I have plenty of RAM to run three or four copies of Windows XP on virtual machines if I want to, and performance isn't bad.

Still, I expect that virtual machine performance would be better under a 64 bit operating system rather than a 32 bit one and I expect to upgrade to more RAM later so I can allocate enough memory to run larger virtual machines. Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't provide an 32 to 64 bit upgrades for users with 32 bit Vista that comes with the machine. To find out whether 64 bit makes a difference, I'd have to shell out for a brand new license. Rather than do that, I decided to install 64 bit Linux. But which one?

Choosing OpenSUSE over Ubuntu

I've been using Ubuntu as my main operating system for the past several years. Before that I'd used Debian (which I'd downloaded over a modem in 1996), than SUSE, and after that Mandrake (now Mandriva). I'd been a happy KDE user before switching to Ubuntu; there are still some KDE features I missed, but after a couple of years I'm pretty satisfied with Gnome.

Given this, it was logical for me to go for Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit, however I ran into a problem with the installer: it showed only a white screen after booting. Using the Alt-F2 keystroke, I brought up a shell window and saw that Ubiquity, the Ubuntu installer, was running. A little Googling showed that others trying to install 8.10 on recent hardware had the same issue. One of the answers was to give the installer boot argument "vga=771", which is hexadecimal 0x303. To make a long story short, this is supposed to tell the kernel that the display is 800x600 with 256 colors. Unfortunately, this didn't work.

Now I am generally happy with Ubuntu, but there are certain things about it that have been thorns in my side over the years. One is that every time there is a kernel update, it seems to break some hardware I use. Oddly enough, the stock Debian kernels seem to be OK most of the time. So I wasn't looking forward to solving this one. Perhaps there was a problem in Ubuntu's 64 bit kernel.

So I decided to research who had successfully used Linux on my laptop model, the Asus F8VA-C1. It turns out that OpenSUSE is reported to work completely with this hardware. I'd been happy with SUSE before it became part of one of the Evil Empire's satellites, so I decided to give OpenSUSE 11.1 a whirl; in the meantime I'd get a chance to look at developments in KDE.

Installing OpenSUSE

I personally hate distro reviews that focus on installation, which is the least important aspect of an operating system... provided it works. However there were some noteworthy occurances in installing OpenSUSE 11.1.

I opted for the net install of OpenSUSE, rather than downloading the full DVD, figuring I wanted to install a minimal system. SUSE's install screen is a beautiful, emerald green, not that it matters. The installation process, while tarted up in all kinds of GUI makeup, is in function and spirit not far removed from the ancient Red Hat text based installers of the late early 2000s.

The net install is probably a mistake, unless you have your own repository to install from. On the plus side, the display on the laptop was being driving correctly, and the wifi card was dectected and configured flawlessly. The download speed was extremely erratic. Sometimes a seven megabyte package would download in under a minute, then a 100K package would take two or three minutes. Then the downloads stopped entirely, and (using the Alt-F1 key) I got a shell console and figured out that the wireless card had somehow become unconfigured. Bizarre. I manually restarted wpa_supplicant and things resumed at their snail's pace. So netinstall is not for beginners.

Finally, the installation process simply halted. The net install runs like this: download a package, install the package; download another package, install that package; repeat for 2000+ packages in a basic installation. For some reason, after it downloaded grub (the boot loader that starts the operating system at power up), it installed it, hanging at "100%".

Bugger this. It'd taken about four hours to reach this point, and I wasn't going to spend another four hours to get to the same impasse. Instead I downloaded the DVD installation. After going through the same preliminaries, I was surprised to find that the DVD install took just as long; it was downloading the packages over the network. Apparently I'd missed an option about whether to use the local copies or to download, and it chose to download by default.

In any case, it was late at night, after spending hours on the net install, so I decided to let the net install run all night. If the wifi didn't turn off mysteriously, it should be done in the morning. In the morning, I discovered that the installation process was hung.... once again on grub, the boot loader. Switching to a command console and running "top", the process that was using the most CPU was, indeed "grub". Odd, that the installer would run grub at this point. Every Linux installer I'd ever used set up booting at the very end. It makes sense, especially if you're dual booting. Why screw up booting over a half installed OS? So I simply killed the grub process, and the installation continued.

WHen it finally finished, I rebooted with trepidation. Would interrupting the grub installation make the system unbootable? Nope. Everything starts up fine. After all the time it took, I'd have been seriously peeved if it didn't.

I now had a (more or less) functional copy of OpenSUSE 11.1.

Conclusions, Part 1

Linux reviews usually overemphasize the installation process. First of all, it's a very small part of the user experience. Also, getting Linux onto the hard disk and booted was never all that difficult, even in back in 1996. What was hard was getting the X window GUI to work, and getting the sound card working with a kernel. Those were real headaches, but fortunately these things have been painless for many years now. You might not get 3D acceleration working on every video card, but most people don't need it.

Still, when an installer simply doesn't work, that's an important detail.

Hardware support is both the great strength and weakness of Linux. If you have an old piece of hardware lying around, say an old USB wifi adapter, chances are you can plug it into a Linux box and it will work. If it was designed to work on a PC, you can usually use it on Mac hardware running Linux. Device manufacturers don't support Linux, so Linux developers build drivers that last.

On the other hand new hardware presents a problem to the Linux user. Manufacturers don't bother creating Linux drivers, so often you'll have to wait until somebody with the skills figures out how to get it working. Still most of the time, even on newly purchased systems, Linux installation is straightforward. This particular laptop, however, is the exception.

My laptop's hard ware, while relatively new, is far from exotic. It has the Intel PM45 chipset, which is fairly standard on high end notebooks these days. The PM45 chipset is pretty much what you want to have if you really want to run Vista reasonably well (more on this in upcoming installments). The F8VA has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics adapter. Basic 2D operation should work (actually 3D seems to work fine under OpenSUSE).

Still, the Ubuntu installer issues are pretty much what you expect for hardware that has been out for less than a year; it's to OpenSUSE's credit that it handles the hardware more or less perfectly. What is a real concern is that OpenSUSE's installer hangs.

Most people, even those accustomed to installing Linux, would not have got OpenSUSE installed, and as it was it took an unconscionable amount of time. I don't ask that an installer be beautiful; it just has to work. It has never been that difficult to get Linux running, so long as the installation program does what it is supposed to, and OpenSUSE's does not.

It makes me wonder about the priorities and overall quality of the distribution, that the installer should look good, but not do the job. It turns out that this is not entirely limited to OpenSUSE's installer. OpenSUSE 11.1 is quite admirable in certain respects, especially it's visual polish which is on par with any other modern operating system. It has a number of serious shortcomings that lead me to think that it wasn't very well tested before release.

Next: OpenSUSE 11.1 and KDE 4

Unbricking an ASUS F8VA after Changing BIOS Settings

INTRODUCTION
Recently I acquired an ASUS F8VA Laptop with Vista Home Premium on it. I'll be reviewing Linux and Vista on this device, but first I'm going to note it is possible to brick the thing with BIOS settings, which I promptly did. I'll post directions for getting out of that mess first, in case any other people encounter similar problems.

My plan was to set aside the Vista disk and buy a new disk to run 64 bit Ubuntu. For some reason this laptop comes with only 32 bit Vista, and I plan to run very large virtual machines on it. As soon as 8GB of RAM becomes less the $200, I'm installing it. In the meantime I started to poke around in the BIOS as is my usual custom. I came across this innocent sounding entry: "Intel TXT(LT) [Disabled]". The help text in this machine's BIOS are really utterly useless; typically the text will be something like "Choose enable to use Intel TXT(LT) feature." No explanation of what this might be or whether it's a good or bad idea. Googling brought up this explanation:

Intel Trusted Execution Technology for safer computing, formerly code named LaGrande Technology, is a versatile set of hardware extensions to Intel® processors and chipsets that enhance the digital office platform with security capabilities such as measured launch and protected execution. Intel Trusted Execution Technology provides hardware-based mechanisms that help protect against software-based attacks and protects the confidentiality and integrity of data stored or created on the client PC. It does this by enabling an environment where applications can run within their own space, protected from all other software on the system. These capabilities provide the protection mechanisms, rooted in hardware, that are necessary to provide trust in the application's execution environment. In turn, this can help to protect vital data and processes from being compromised by malicious software running on the platform.

OK, that sounds interesting. It sounds like a kind of hardware based choot jail. This laptop has a recent processor and the new Intel PM45 chipset. Actually, the hardware on this system is so new it's a bit of chore getting Linux running. What would Vista make of this being enabled? If Vista wouldn't boot, I could just F2 back to BIOS setup, right?

Wrong. This feature requires a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chip to work properly, and if it's not there then the system will not only not boot, it won't let you get back to the BIOS settings to turn that pesky feature off. That wouldn't be exactly secure, would it? Curiously, you can boot ASUS's Splashtop environment, even though you aren't allowed into BIOS settings and can't boot the OS. I'll get back to that at the moment, but for now I'll get right to the unbricking process.

STRATEGY
The aim of this procedure is to clear the BIOS settings by removing the motherboard battery for a few minutes. This battery provides the tiny amount of power needed to maintain the BIOS settings and to run the motherboard clock while the system is turned off. It is a large button or watch style battery, typically a CR2032, and usually lasts for many years before it needs replacing. It's also usually fairly easy to access. Usually. Not here. The battery lies between the DVD drive and the video card. You're going to have to disassemble the laptop to get at it.


TOOLS
You will need a small phillips head screwdriver. You might be able to use a jeweler's screwdriver but a precision screwdriver slightly larger would be ideal. You will need something like a small common or flathead screwdriver to release the keyboard. Then you'll need something to act like a pair of tweezers (tweezers are ideal, but the swiss army type are too short) or alternatively a very thin, sharp thing to pry with, like an old fashioned razorblade or (if you work on Macs) a really thin putty knife.

CAUTIONS
This procedure will void your warranty. It will also almost certainly cause a small amount of cosmetic damage to your laptop, unless you are experienced, careful, and have the appropriate tools and workspace. I chose to do this because I don't care how the laptop looks and can't be bothered waiting weeks for an RMA replacement.

STEPS
(0) Prepare a work area. A large towel on the table will protect your laptop case, and provide a contrasting color to make finding those tiny screws easier.

(1) Remove the power sources from the machine. Unplug the power adapter, then turn the machine over and remove the battery. If you have trouble figuring out how to remove your battery, you should stop here!

(2) Remove the DVD drive. It is secured with two screws, one located on the bottom of the machine roughly an inch behind the DVD eject button. The other is further towards the centerline of the machine near some vent holes. I find laying out the screws on the table in the same physical relationship they have on the laptop makes reassembly faster. Pull the drive out and set it aside.

(3) Remove the hard disk. The cover is secured by three screws. Set aside the cover in your screw layout with the screws in the holes. Once the cover has been removed, the hard disk can be extracted by pulling it away from the connector, then up.

At this point let me note that I didn't completely disasemble my laptop, because doing so would require removing the strip that contains the buttons abovethe keyboard. This would probably be neater and easier, but I didn't have anything handy that woudl do it without leaving some really nasty dings in the plastic. So I opted to get the laptop apart enough that I could reach the battery with a pair of tweezers from the video card side. For that reason we'll remove the video card cover.

(4) Locate and remove the video card cover. It's a large cover located adjacent to the power adapter plug, and has your Vista sticker on it. It's held on by three or so small screws. Remove the cover, put the screws into the holes for safekeepign, and set it aside in your screw layout area.

(5) Remove the screws that would have been visible before you started removing covers and set them aside, including one that secures a little right angle cover along the rear next to the modem port. Set them and the right angle cover aside in your layout area.

(6) Remove the screw next to the wireless card, which was underneath the hard disk cover. The wireless card has black and white antenna wires attached to it. You can see that the screw next to it secures the plastic back to something below. It's been a few days, but I don't think it's necessary to remove the wireless card itself. If you do, you'll have to remember to put it back and the antenna wires; the gold connectors on the end just push on and pull off.

(7) Remove the two screws in the rear of the machine.

(8) Turn the machine over.

(9) Free the keyboard. If you look at the space above the top row of keys, you'll see four black plastic clips. They work just like the bolt attached to a doorknob; they are spring backed with a trianglular cross section, which means the pop put of the way when the keyboard is pressed down on them, but won't allow the keyboard to be pried up. Using your small flat screwdriver, push the rightmost clip back, and insert a swiss army knifeblade or similar to the right of the clip. Use the blade to gently pry up the keyboard so the top edge clears the rightmost clip.

Keeping the knife in place, push back the second clip from the right and pry up so the keyboard clears that. Repeat until the keyboard clears all four clips.

(10) Remove the keyboard. The keyboard is now attached to the computer by a thin ribbon cable. On the computer side, the cable is locked into the connector by a white strip of plastic on the connector. That strip moves a fraction of a mm in (towards the rear of the computer) to lock and out (towards the front) to unlock. Unlock the cable and gently pull it out. The keyboard is now free. Set it aside.

(11) Remove all the screws under the keybaord and set them aside.

(12) (optional) Remove any screws under panel above the keyboard that has the LEDS and buttons. I didn't opt for a complete disasembly, which would make the next steps easier. Presumably, the remaining screws are under this panel. The thin silver plastic strips to the left and right of the buttons are held in by friction (I believe). You could pry out these strips with a knife or a sharpened metal putty knife (if you work on Macs you have such a thing). The thing is that unless you have the putty knife prying tool, you're going to gouge the soft plastic. After removing this, you'd fiddle around, and presumably discover the remaining screws holding things together. Someday you'll want to do this, when the backlight of your notebook starts acting flaky. This is normally where the inverter board that powers the backlight lives.

(13) Locate the battery. If you sight down the DVD bay, you'll see the battery, which is about the size of a US quarter, in its black pastic holder, at the right of the far end of the bay. It's actually closer to the video card, but it's easier to spot this way.

(14) Gently pry apart the black bottom plastic half of the chassis from the top, from the DVD side. If you opted for complete disassembly, I guess it should just come apart at this point. If not, you're aim here is to bend the plastic enough so you can reach in to the battery from the video card side. IMPORTANT: you don't need to force this enough to break the plastic. If it doesn' t easily pry open an inch or so near the battery, look for a screw you missed. Put someting in the gap like a paperback book to keep it pried open.

(15) Remove the battery. You don't pry the battery out; it has a spring clip. If the computer is upside down, just reach in with a screwdriver and fiddle the clip and the battery will drop out.

(16) Wait for a few minutes.

(17) Replace the battery. This step takes the most dexterity. However, you aren't going to be able to send the computer back in this state, are you? So you're just going to have to fumble at it. Turn the computer right side up (otherwise you'll be fishing the battery out as it falls). Tear of a small piece of paper to insulate the battery where you'll be grasping it with your tweezers (unless you have plastic tweezers), then carefully grasp the battery by as little edge as you can manage. From the video card side, place the battery in its holder, the minus (slightly smaller side) should face toward the motherboard. It will probably drop in a bit crooked, but a little is OK. Then push the battery down with a small screwdriver until it snaps audibly into place. Fish out the piece of paper.

(18) Reassemble the computer in reverse order. The trickiest bit is getting the keyboard ribbon cable plugged back in. These connectors are zero force; you don't have to jam anything. On the minus side, there's no friction to hold the cable in place when you let go of it, until you've pushed in the locking bar, and the stiff plastic cable will want to hop out. If you have a third set of hands hold the keyboard, you can hold the cable in place while you push in the locking bar with a small screwdriver. If you removed your wifi card, remember to put it back in and plug the antenna in.

(19) Put the battery and AC power back in, and reboot, holding down the F2 key to return to BIOS setup. You'll need to set the date.

You have now undone what five seconds of curiosity did to your computer.

Remarks and Conclusion.

If you mess around with BIOS settings, you have to be prepared for some trouble. However, the BIOS writers who put it there also decided to (a) make BIOS settings inaccessible once you changed that setting and (b) not to bother including any help text to that effect. I think it's pretty bad that users can set a BIOS settings that requires a significant hardware fix.

The whole thing is pointless from a security standpoint. This exercise proves it is not difficult for a motivated person to remove the TPM hardware and circumvent the BIOS settings. In fact there is are even simpler ways to get around this, if the point is protecting the data on the hard drive. The drive can be removed and popped into an identical computer with TPM turned off in the BIOS.

Another curious aspect of this is that while it is impossible to boot to the OS or access BIOS settings, it is possible to access Splashtop, as fast booting Linux environment that ASUS has rebranded "ExpressGate". So presumably, ExpressGate is trusted by the BIOS whereas the operating system is not. Now I've noticed a number of interesting things about ExpressGate/Splashtop. One is that my USB keyboard doesn't work. I presume the idea is that ExpressGate is an isolated, self-contained environment, and so can be trusted in ways the main operating system cannot. One of the things that is possible, I believe, is to reflash the BIOS from ExpressGate, although I expect that function is probably disabled in this kind of situation.

Still, while ExpressGate/Splashtop is supposed to be isolated, and can be run from motherboard flash memory, on this machine it is not. It is in a "hidden" partition on the same disk as the operating system. "Hidden" is a misnomer; the partition isn't in any way hidden from the operating system, it's just a notation that the operating system isn't supposed to mount the filesystem in it. The partition is perfectly visible in a disk utility.

It seems to me that the kind of paranoia that locks owners out of BIOS settings is strongly undermined by trusting an operating system on the same hard disk as the user's data and OS, especially when anyone can take the hard disk out and alter the Splashtop system. Since it is Linux, it could even be modified to do something like boot the main operating system in a virtual environment, logging all the user's keystrokes.

What is Privacy?

Scott McNealy once famously said, "You have no privacy. Get over it."

I doubt that even Mr. McNealy believes this. Mr. McNealy would not like it if somebody continually accosted him while he tried to go about his business (what lawyers would call the tort of intrusion). He wouldn't like it if people tapped his phone. He wouldn't like it if somebody tried subvert his relationships by spreading falsehoods (or worse, cunningly chosen truths).

We all cherish our privacy. Unfortunately we're often asked to trade off privacy for some other thing, say money or national security, without really considering what it is we're giving away. The philosophical definitions of privacy I have seen tend to be too complex, miss important elements of the privacy, or both. On the other hand, the simplest definitions don't give much real guidance. Justice Brandeis defined privacy as "the right to be left alone." While this is on the right track, it doesn't really capture the full spectrum of rights.

Privacy is not just about being left alone, but about the right to control our engagements with other people. Who you choose as your friends is clearly a personal matter and interference with this choice is clearly a privacy intrusion.

After considering this for a while, I believe that every privacy concern boils down in some way to the issue of autonomy or self-direction. This is most easily seen when it comes to issues of intrusion. If you are in a public place, you must expect to be seen and observed by others. But if somebody begins to follow you around as you go about your business, they cross the line. They're interfering with your freedom of choice of places to go and things to do.

Autonomy is also behind other privacy concerns, but in less obvious ways. The neighbor who makes loud noises interferes with your autonomy of attention. The person who spreads misleading facts about you interferes with your ability to control your reputation through your own choices. The person who goes through your trash in order to find out about your private habits places curbs upon those habits.

Privacy is not autonomy in the sense of absolute freedom; it is about freedom to make choices in light of reasonable consequences of those choices. Therefore, I would offer this as a definition of privacy:

Privacy is the right of an individual or group to be free from unreasonable interference in the conduct of their affairs or in their thoughts.

I believe this covers every form of privacy concern there is, as well as the normal excpetions and trade offs to privacy. In every case, issues of privacy turn out to be issues of freedom, and exceptions to privacy turn out to be reasonable consequences of our freely chosen actions -- or at least they should be.

I started to think about privacy again after reading some posts by people who were struggling with the question of whether privacy was really needed in a free society. I believe that privacy in fact defines a free society, both in the way it limits intrusions of others in our affairs, and in how it limits our expectations to be free from the consequences of our actions.

Lloyd Alexander 1924-2007 An Appreciation

Sometimes prospective writers consider writing juvenile literature as a way of breaking into the business. Writing for children well is a lot harder than it sounds.

Young readers do not have patience with long, rambling setups where the author clumsily expounds everything he thinks the reader might need to know, before letting his characters do anything. It's important to get things moving fairly quickly.

On the other hand, this advice can be taken too much to heart, with frenetic but ultimately dull results. It is possible that some authors, after the layers of exposition have been stripped away, don't have anything interesting or important to say.

But a few, a very few, have the gift to produce true children's literature. John Bellairs. C.S. Lewis. Katherine Patterson. And Lloyd Alexander.

What puts Alexander among the greats of this field is not easy to put your finger on. Craft and economy, certainly these are requirements to create passable works. But this doesn't capture what makes a children's author great. I've heard some say that Alexander's works are founded in a profound and humane philosophy. But while I think such a philosophy might be created from the raw material of Alexander's writing, it is only a by-product of Alexander's true gift.

Lloyd Alexander's gift is that he writes as somebody who still experiences things like love, anger, pride, and loss in the vivid springtime colors of youth. Even so, he understands them with the gravity of experience. He is Taran and Dallben at the same time.

My feelings on Lloyd Alexander's death are not entirely ones of unmixed sadness. Wonder is what predominates. That he could continue to write over so many decades without the well running dry. That he could have run such a long race and died within two weeks of his wife of many decades.

It pleases some people to think that age gives them an automatic claim to wisdom, or at least authority. They are fond of saying things like "if I only knew then what I know now." Lloyd Alexander teaches us by his example and through his writing, to turn that dull and absurd notion on its head. What we should be saying is, "if we only knew now what we knew then." Only then can we unlock the secret of seeing the world and the people in it as new, and abounding in possibility.

I cannot feel very sad in a world so full of hope.

The True story of the Three Educated Pigs

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. One day their wise mother called them to her and said, "My children, soon the time will come for you to leave. But the world is a hard place; you need to go to school before you can make your way in it."

So she gave them a pile of brochures, and each chose the school that seemed to suit him best. The first pig, who was an artistic sort, decided to go to the College of Make-Do, where he studied Art with Found Materials with minored in textiles. The second pig, who wasn’t interested in school and much more interested in saving enough money to buy a motorcycle, decided on a course of interdisciplinary studies at the "New School of Hard Knocks". He unwisely thought this sounded like the easiest choice. The third pig, who was ambitious, chose to pursue a degree in Management from Major Edifice University.

Four years later the three pigs returned from college, much heavier in the head and belly, and lighter in the wallet. It was a pleasant June day for a walk, and they strolled along happily. As they were admiring the sun on the grass, waving in the gentle summer breeze, the first pig suddenly stopped.

"Say," he said with alarm, "this grass is Nolina microcarpa!"

"So?" his brothers asked.

"It's an exotic species!" the first pig said. "If develops a seed head, it will spread on the wind and displace all the native grass species. Something must be done immediately!" he exclaimed. So he went to the land owner, and offered to mow all his land if the owner would let him cart away the all the Nolina grass. And quick as a wink, he set to it. Before long he had a huge pile of grass, which he decided to weave into an ecologically friendly straw house.

The two other brothers helped for a while, then decided to go on their way. "Did you know he could be so industrious?" the third pig asked, as the road wound through dense stand of bushes.

"Well, you know him when he gets an idea in his head," said the second one. "Speaking of which, how long do you intend to keep walking? My trotters are about to fall off."

"I'm looking for just the right spot," replied the third brother. "If I site my house wisely, its value will appreciate at greater than market rates."

"Well, I'm happy if I have a dry place to put my trotters up." replied the second pig. "This will do for me," he said, stopping at a place where there was a wide field next to the road. So the two brothers affectionately parted ways, and the second brother quickly built himself a house of sticks.

Now the first two brothers were had soon finished their houses, and since they lived close by they saw quite a bit of each other. But as the summer wore on they began to wonder how their brother was getting on. So one day they decided to go down the road a piece to see if they could find him. It turned out the third pig was not far away at all, at pleasant spot at the base of a hill where the road wound is way around the edge of a pond. They found him sitting on a tumble down pile of bricks and iron bars, sweating on the August sun.

Way up at the top of the hill was the beginnings of a brick wall, no more than a foot or two high, and if it were longer than it were high, it was not by much.

"I see you've found your perfect spot," said the second pig. "How has it been going?" It was obvious to the first two pigs that their brother had spent the summer sleeping on the ground with his briefcase as a pillow.

"Terrible!" exclaimed the first pig. "My order of bricks and tools didn't come for weeks and weeks. Finally I had to place an order with a different company, and both orders came in on the same day! Neither of the companies would take the things back, so here I am with two of everything!" he moaned.

"But brother," asked the first pig, "don't tell me they just dumped all the bricks in a pile like that? Half of them are cracked. Although," he added thoughtfully, "it does lend them a certain character."

"This," replied the third brother sadly, "is what's left of my house. I had planned to build the house at the top of the hill, but when the materials got here so late, there was no way I could get it done in time for the electrician. He's booked solid and only had a few days open. I'd only taken two wheelbarrows of bricks up there when it occurred to me that most of my time would be spent hauling bricks up the hill, and it would be much faster just to build it down here."

"Sounds like a good idea," said the second brother, "so what happened?"

"The ground was too soft," said the third brother. "I should have poured a foundation, but I was in a rush and I couldn't coordinate my schedule with the cement people. I'd just about finished my house when it started raining. The ground turned to mud and my house fell down. So now I'm back to building up on the top of the hill. The ground is granite ledge up there, so I don't need a foundation. But now I'll be lucky to have a roof over my head by winter, with no electricity."

"No electricity?" the second brother asked, "The electrician is busy until next year?"

"No, he's flying south," replied the first.

"You nitwit," said the first brother, "you should have asked us to help. We had our houses done ages ago!"

"Yes," said the second, who was uncommonly big and strong, "we'll all pitch in and we'll have those bricks up the hill in a jiffy."

The third little pig would have jumped and squealed for joy, but just then Mr. Rabbit thumped up, eyes wide with fear and excitement. "Run for your lives!" he cried breathlessly, "the big bad wolf is coming!"

"Big and bad you say?" asked the first pig, "How do we know he's not simply misunderstood?"

"I expect," said the second brother, "it's because he eats pigs."

They all shivered.

"Oh, he's dreadful!" agreed the rabbit. "It wouldn't be so bad if he just ate you. They say he read classics at university, but nearly flunked out because he spent all his time acting in plays. Before he gobbles you up he goes through this awful ..." the rabbit shuddered, "routine."

"Oh, one of THOSE," groaned the second pig. "I think I've overbuilt my house. I've got to run along and take some of the sticks out of it. Brother," he said to the third pig, "you had better come with me."

"Am I to understand," the third pig, his voice rising to a hysterical squeak, "that you're suggesting we await the arrival of a ravening, deadly, porcicidal wolf in a house made of STICKS?"

"Better there than here," replied his brother.

"No thank you," said the third pig,” I’ll see if I can't work something out here."

"And, you brother?" asked the second pig of the first pig.

"I think I will be all right," he replied, "if our brother here will give me some of the materials from his ruined house, and lend me his spare wheelbarrow." This the third pig readily consented to, and sooner than it can be said it was done. Then the three pigs wished each other good luck and there were hugs all around.

Each of the three brothers made his preparations as best he could, and in a day or two, who should come along but the wolf, walking along as sharp and clever as ever, and hungrier than usual. Catching the scent of pig, the big bad wolf saw it came from a little straw house. He couldn’t believe his luck! He walked up to the first pig's door, bold as brass, and in a loud baritone voice, he cried, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in!"

"No!" replied the first pig, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" for indeed he was very proud of his goatee, which took him four solid years to grow.

"Hem, hem hem!" the wolf cleared his throat, reminding himself that his motivation in this scene was that he was hungry and somebody was keeping him from his dinner. "Then I'll HUFF, then I'll PUFF, then I'll BLOW YOUR HOUSE IN!" he said in a very loud, deep voice that came from so far down in his throat it was roaring out of his belly.

Dear children, this is what stage actors "speaking from the diaphragm", and they use it so that even when they are whispering on stage, people in the back row can hear what they are saying. As proud as the first pig was of his goatee, the wolf for his part was positively vain about what he called his "classical training."

"Do you think you could just, you know, pick the house up and move it someplace else?" asked the first pig from inside, "it was rather tricky to get just right."

The wolf looked and saw that indeed the house, which was very lovely, could not have weighed more the twenty or thirty pounds, so rather than wasting his breath he just picked it up and tossed it to the side. To his surprise, there was what looked like a neat little box of bricks built into the side of a gleaming block of metal. There was a small but stout looking wooden door facing him.

"What's this?" asked the wolf.

"It's my wolf closet!" came the voice of the first pig from inside the strange little box. "Took me about two or three hours to put it together after I'd rounded up the materials. Much easier than building an entire house out of bricks, and it's very economical. What do you think?"

The wolf in all his days had never heard of anybody making a wolf closet. It did indeed look like effective and inexpensive wolf protection. The wolf decided that he'd better not let word of this get around, and as he was hungry he could, as they say, "kill two birds with one stone". He heaved a mighty kick at the door, then yowled in pain and jumped around on other foot.

"Sorry," the first pig, "the door's made of mountain ash. It's very durable -- ash I mean -- and it's practically a weed so it's easy to harvest sustainably. Plus it's reinforced with iron rebar. I mean the door is. The whole structure is in fact."

"This WHOLE THING is reinforced with iron bars?" asked the wolf incredulously.

"Well, they're RECYCLED," said the pig defensively.

The wolf looked around the little box, to see if he could find a weak point. "What's this big silvery metal thing in back?" he asked.

"That's my espresso machine. It's from Italy; it was kind of a stretch, but I sold a lot of my paintings at the art fair, so I thought, why not?" said the pig.

"You have a COFFEE machine in that thing?" asked the wolf

"Oh, yes," replied the pig. "While I loathe the environmental and labor practices of the coffee industry, " he continued sadly, "I find I really can’t do without it. "

"Does it actually work?" asked the wolf curiously.

"See for yourself," relied the pig, and he opened a tiny slit in the door, just big enough for the wolf to peep into.

When the wolf peeped in, out came a burst of steam which burned him on the nose and sent him running away yelping in pain. When he finally calmed down, he had resolved to go back and outwait the first pig. "He has to come out some time," the wolf thought angrily.

But just then he caught the scent of pig wafting in the breeze. Turning around he was surprised to see the second pig, reading a book and sitting up in a comfortable chair in the middle of something that he supposed might be a house, although it was more like a loose framework of sticks with a thatched roof. The wolf couldn't believe his luck! It was almost too good to be true. So he walked up, bold as brass to the little house and took a deep breath.

"Can I help you," asked the second pig, who of course could see the wolf coming plain as day.

"Er, I was just about to ask you if I could come in," sputtered the wolf, who was caught bit off guard. He wasn't used to people (or pigs) changing the script in the middle of performance!

"I don't think so," said the pig.

"Well, then I'll HUFF and I'll PUFF and I'll... Say, what is this thing you're sitting in?" asked the wolf, suddenly overcome with curiosity.

"Well, if you must ask," replied the pig, "this is my house. I rather like it."

"This thing is a HOUSE?" asked the wolf, in disbelief.

"Oh, it's a bit drafty with the drapes open," said the pig calmly, "but it's quite pleasant on a summer afternoon."

The wolf gazed at the odd contraption with bewilderment.

"Do you think you might be done now?" asked the pig impatiently, "As you can see I am otherwise engaged." He held up his book and waggled it.

"No, no!" replied the wolf, "I was, uh, I was, er..."

"Huff and puff," prompted the pig helpfully.

"Oh, yes, I was going to blow your house in!" cried the wolf.

"Must you?" asked the pig.

"Yes I must!" cried the wolf.

"Very well," replied the pig with a sigh, and he set his book down on the table next to him and popped open an umbrella.

The wolf huffed and puffed as he had never huffed and puffed before, and he blew a mighty blow that swept in one side of the house and out the other, with no effect whatsoever other than turning the pig's umbrella inside out. While the wolf had from time to time of course encountered a brick or stone houses that would have taken a bulldozer to knock down, he’d never had failed to blow in a house of sticks . He reckoned that he couldn’t blow the house down because, practically speaking, it had no actual walls to blow on. So he decided he would bite his way through the slender sticks of the house.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you," warned the pig, "the sticks come from thorn bushes."

The wolf stopped, and saw that this was true. "Say," he said suspiciously, "it was uncommonly kind of you to tell me that, what with my trying to eat you and all."

"Think nothing of it," replied the pig with a magnanimous wave.

"Um," said the wolf, casting about for a topic of conversation while he studied the peculiar little house for weaknesses, "whatever gave you the idea of building a stick house?"

"My school motto," said the pig, indicating a diploma hanging on the far wall. "New School of Hard Knocks" was written in big fancy letters, and below that was the motto, but it was too small for even the wolf's sharp eyes to make out.

"I'm sorry," said the wolf, "but I can't read that far away."

"Let me help you," said the pig, who took the diploma, and walked to a certain corner of the house, holding it face out for the wolf to read. The wolf weighed the possibility of making a snatch for the pig's trotter through the sticks, but the pig carefully was holding the diploma just out of range of the wolf’s sharp teeth. So the wolf read.

"It says, 'sticks and stones will break your bones'," the wolf read. "I see the sticks, but where are the stones?"

"Here," said the pig, and quick as a wink he pulled a cord. This cord released a stone from under the eaves of his little house, and it dropped right down on the wicked wolf's head. Had the stone been a bit larger, that would have been the end of the story. But it wasn't quite big enough to do him serious harm; instead he saw stars, and ran about howling and cursing and demanding that the pig come out and meet him face to face instead of sitting in there like a coward.

To the wolf's surprise, the pig said, "OK", and removing a padlock from the door, he ducked through the doorway and unfolded himself to his full height.

Now the wolf, who was city bred, didn't have much experience with live pigs that you caught yourself. He thought of pigs as something you get from the butcher and which made an attractive presentation on a silver platter with a shiny apple in its mouth. He expected when he retired to the life of a country gentleman, that he would find cute little piglets just free for the taking, skipping around and playing games and all that sort of rubbish. But of course sensible country people know that full grown pigs are very big, and very strong, and can be big trouble when they're angry. And the second pig was very, very big and very, very strong, even for a pig. And he looked so angry that it made the wolf’s hackles stand up in alarm.

"Great Scott!" thought the wolf, "he must weigh twenty-five stone or I'm a pup!" He gulped. "Umm," he said in a cracking voice (one which I'm sorry to say the wolf had neglected to introduce to Mr. Diaphragm), "what big muscles you have Mr. Pig!"

"Not so big for somebody who knows what an honest day's work is," replied the pig.

"And, um, what a big, red, bushy beard you have!" said the wolf.

"Really?" replied the pig. "I shaved it clean off this morning and it's back already. I don't know why I bother."

The wolf's eyes dropped to what looked like a section of a maple sapling trunk that the pig was holding in one trotter and smacking into the palm of the other, as if he was testing its weight. It was making an ominous "thwack, thwack" sound.

"And, umm," said on the wolf nervously,” what a big stick you have there! Might I inquire what you intend to do with it?"

"Remember the school motto?" asked the pig.

"Yes," replied the wolf.

"Think about it."

The wolf thought about it, and in twinkling he was running off down the road, as quick as his legs could take him.

"Phew!" said the pig, who was in truth the gentlest creature you can imagine. He'd really had a miserable time at that terrible school, where people got picked on for being polite and kind. Although it had cost him endless boring hours lifting weights and practicing angry faces in front the mirror, he eventually managed to make himself so big, and SO scary, that even the rhino (who was a foreign student) used to cross to the other side of the street when he saw him coming.

"I'd better check up on my brothers," he thought. "That old wolf is up to no good."

And indeed he was. The big bad wolf had run down the road until he fell to the ground, gasping for breath. But suddenly, he perked up as he caught the scent of pig in the air. It was coming from a pile of bricks. He couldn't believe his luck! So the wolf hopped up and started walking up toward the pile of bricks, bold as brass.

Then he stopped. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Er…" he began, "is anybody in there?"

"No!" came the frightened squeak of the third pig, whose preparations had not gone as well as his brothers. In fact he had barely enough time to burrow into a pile of bricks when the wolf had come running up.

"Well, in that case," began the wolf, eyeing the third pig's curly tail and fat rump sticking out of the top of the bricks, "in that case perhaps I should call again another day."

"Oh, drat!" cried the third brother, "I'm so pathetic! You might as well put me out of my misery!" The pig sat up, bricks falling from his shoulders. "Here I am, come gobble me up!"

"Um, no thanks." replied the wolf.

"You're toying with me!" cried the pig, "I've heard all about you, you old sinner. I demand you come up here this instant and gobble me up!"

"Pray calm yourself sir," replied the wolf. "I have, uh, just had luncheon. I really couldn't swallow another morsel." And as if to punctuate this speech, the wolf's empty stomach gave a loud rumble.

The third pig was just about to march down off his brick pile and demand that the wolf stop playing this ridiculous game, when his two brothers came running up. The second pig had his maple club and looked like he meant business. And, dear children, the look on his face was so angry that if you saw it you'd never have another nightmare again, because it wouldn't want to live in a head with such a frightful memory for a neighbor. The first pig also had a club, but he regarded it doubtfully, as if he was unsure which end he was supposed to be holding.

"I see I am intruding," said the wolf hastily, "so I will take my leave." Which he did, running away as fast as his legs could take him.

Such a joyous reunion they had. They hugged and wept and danced, and finally when they grew tired of that, they all sat down and told their stories. When the third pig heard how it had gone at the first pig's house, he became very excited, and insisted that they should all go into the business of selling wolf closets. The other pigs thought this was a ridiculous idea. But the first pig wheedled them and wheedled them until they agreed to start a business selling beautiful, affordable and energy efficient straw houses, equipped with highly secure brick wolf closets.

And what would you know, but the third pig was right, and they were VERY glad of his management expertise, or they could never have kept up with the business! People simply adored their snug, attractive little straw houses. They loved the fact they could just pick their house up and move it any place they wanted, although this meant buying a new wolf closet, which kept the third pig very happy. The first pig designed all kinds of neat and clever houses and closets; the second pig, who liked to meet people, rode his new motorcycle all over the place and told them about the wonderful houses his family made. And the third pig made sure they always had just the things they needed so nobody had to wait to long for their lovely new houses.

And the wolf? Well, by and by the third pig, who was very thorough, began to wonder whether it was mistake to leave the wolf out of his calculations. So he made a few inquiries, and learned the wolf was, as they say "down at the heel". The poor old wolf just didn't have the old panache he once had, and most days he had nothing to eat at all. It would be hard to say which he missed more, the panache or the regular meals. And while it is mystery where panache goes when it deserts its owners, there was no mystery why the wolf was finding a good meal harder to come by: more and more people these days had wolf closets! The second pig would not hear of leaving the fellow in such straits, seeing as he was, unintentionally of course, the source of all their current prosperity. He insisted that the firm hire the old wolf to work in their factory at once, and the first pig added that under no circumstances could they even consider hiring the wolf for anything less than a decent living wage. The third pig for his part was all in favor of letting the old sinner starve. But the first two wheedled him and they wheedled him, until at last he gave in and gave the wolf a job.

The first brother volunteered to make sure that the wolf was employed under porcine conditions, and that he was in no wise suffered from anti-lupine discrimination. I am sorry to say that while this was kindly meant, he frankly made a pest of himself to the poor old wolf, who was in no position to rebuff his generosity. But it was a relief to his brothers, for while business was brisk, there was not really enough design work to keep the first pig busy all the time. "Better the wolf than us", they thought.

But eventually, the kind second pig relented and was about to suggest they find something else for the first pig to do, when the third pig called him on his cell phone.

"I've just had a wonderful idea," said the third pig. "I think we should advertise on the radio."

"Ok," said the second brother, "if you think it's a good idea."

"Yes, and we'll need a voice to represent the company," the third pig said.

"If you say so," said the second pig. Then, as they say, "the penny dropped". "Oh," he said.

And that is how the wolf became the voice of the Three Pig House Company (although the first pig always insisted it was the Three Pig House Cooperative), and they all became fabulously rich and famous. One good thing came of the first pig pestering the wolf for so long though. He convinced the wolf to try being a vegetarian. To everyone's open surprise (and secret relief), the wolf took to it. He always claimed after that eating vegetables and fruit made him twenty years younger, and kept his extremely valuable voice in tip top shape. And indeed he must be right, since anybody can plainly see he has extra panache simply "coming out of his ears". And as he positively has more panache than even a wolf knows what to do with, he gives the extra to his friends the pigs, who use it to sell more houses.

And the moral of the story? Dear children, you must not ask me that. Only false stories made up by fibbers with an “axe to grind” finish by rudely beating you over the head with a moral. This is the TRUE story of the educated three pigs, so if you absolutely must have a moral I'm afraid you'll have to make one up yourself.

The time, the near future

the place, a city in the US.

You sit at a cluttered bench in a darkened back room, a single reading lamp illuminating a riot of circuits and gleaming mechanical assemblies. Old stuff. Valuable. Practically priceless, since they cut off the Malaysian pipeline. A wisp of smoke caresses your face, carrying the scent of vaporized resin, molten tin, and lead. A bead of sweat rises on your forehead. This work is delicate: this piece is old, and if the traces lift that would be just too bad.

The sharp clang of a brass bell and the slam of the door break your concentration. "Damn," you mutter, "who the hell can that be."

You slip through the curtain, careful not to reveal any of the very incriminating goods back there, and let out a low whistle. It's a dame, and what a dame.

"Can you help me?" she asks.

"If you're looking for baseball cards," you reply, indicating the dusty glass cases. "Can I interest you in a Roger Clemens, he's real meat."

"Meat?"

"Yeah, you, know, pre-virtual." You watch her closely. She's hard to read, but one thing is certain, no broad ever strolled through this neighborhood at a eleven at night shopping for a goddamned baseball card.

"A friend sent me," she says, in a high tense, slightly quavering voice.

"Oh, yeah, what's his name." Your eyes narrow suspiciously. You don't like where this is going and you're too corrupt to buy the doe-eyed innocent routine from anyone who walks in off the street. Quavers can be affected, and you're practically a connoisseur.

"Maybe you'll recognize him," she says more briskly, reaching into her purse.

You suck your breath involuntarily through your teeth. "iPod," you whisper, "old by the looks of it."

"Original firmware" she purrs.

Original firmware. Easier to penetrate than a bus station whore. But this whole situation stinks bad. You're practically the only one left; better guys than you didn't last because they couldn't smell a setup. This lady may not know about the syndicate takeover of baseball in '10, but she's very au courant about stuff she has no business being.

"Lady, you must have me confused with somebody else. Monkeying with one of those things is very illegal. I don't know where you found it, but I suggest you turn it into the Department of Free Expression right away."

"Oh, I think I have the right man," she says with a laugh like breaking glass. There's a glint of steely amusement in her eyes as they flick down to your right hand.

Suddenly you become aware of the smell of hot lead. Idiot! You never put down the damned soldering iron. If she had be DFE you'd be iced by now. You'd be lucky to be iced, instead of declared "illegal information operative" and put on a plane to one of their offshore IIO interrogation facilities.

You flick off the lights. Stepping around the counter, you squeeze past her to turn the sign on the door to "Closed". Looking through the door window and up the stairs, you see a car idling at the curb with its lights off. Dark tinted windows, but there's at least a driver and who knows what they've got pointed towards you. You flick a concealed switch, and the car door opens suddenly, and vomits out an obvious goon with murder in his eyes. His headphones are still on, and he fumbles with his IR window rig as he reaches into his waistband for something more lethal. Looking past you he stops short, and apparently changes his mind, getting back into the car. You turn to see her covering up her look of disapproval.

So the lady is boss. And the goon too nicely tailored and poorly barbered to be government issue. And if they're not official, there's only one other kind of people interested in what you do: unprincipled. It's nice to deal with people who have predictable priorities. Carriage trade too, by the looks of it. While you've seen more professional goons in your time, good help is notoriously hard to come by.

"What was that about?" she asks.

"Here, let me show you." You take her hand and put it on the window. Her dainty hand is warm and soft, but dead feeling, like a fresh corpse. The window, on the other hand, is ice cold and hard, but thrumming and vibrating. She raises one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows in surprise. "He doesn't like my 'cast" you say, with a wicked grin. "Strictly for my private customers, you understand?"

You pull the shades. The only light is filtering in over the transom. "It's very dark in here," the lady says.

"Oh, I like it dark," you reply. And you do. You're like a mushroom, and your little shop is a close to a cave under a rock as you can manage. It doesn't even have a back entrance: the kind of people you worry about don't overlook details like back entrances. Any visitors have to come in the front way, from under the bright street lamp and through your cramped coffin of a shop. Dark and cramped suits you very well. "We don't need light for what we need to do."

"Oh, and what is that?" she sneers, but her voice is a bit high pitched and tense. You've seen enough nervousness to know the real thing. All bravado and broken razor blades.

"Talk. You wanted to talk didn't you?" you reply. "We can talk, but it's gonna cost ya." Retirement is looking like a higher priority right now: that stunt with the soldering iron probably took ten years off your life. Mentally you tote up how much you need to kiss the business goodbye. Not much. At this rate, three years you'll have enough to change your name, move some place sunny and to kill yourelf with cheap booze, cigarettes and women. Maybe two years if you're not too greedy.

And you're too smart to get too greedy. Or so you've always told yourself. But you're about to be tempted like you've never been before.

Miller Time 12/25

Now for the best part of the whole annual affair. I go into the house, stamp the snow off my boots; rip the 24 page off the calendar and settle in in front of the fire, warming my stockinged feet and nursing a mug of ginger tea to settle my stomach. I ask you: what kind of mad barbarian would think of putting raw eggs in milk and drinking the mess? Disgusting. That may be fine for a that Scandinavian fellow they use in all the pictures, but I'm Greek and of course I'm lactose intolerant. Just once I'd like it if somebody would leave a nice plate of olives or some flat bread with coarse sea salt and bit of extra virgin oil.

I'm dog tired but still too hyped up to go to bed. The caffeine levels in my blood would give a lesser man a stroke. I may as well stay up and turn in early tomorrow night. As usual there's nothing on the tube worth watching. We only get one network up here: the Surveillance Network. I thought we might be able to get a dish, but when we told the person on the phone our latitude he just laughed and hung up.

Well, I could get a start on next year's list I guess; it beats talking to myself.

Let's get the worst over first. Let's see... OK, here's little Tommy. He got a game console, but not the one he wanted. He's screaming bloody murder. Mom is going to make it right though as soon as the stores open tomorrow. Unspeakable little blackmailer. Runs in the family though. She threatened him with no presents, and of course now she doesn't have a leg to stand on. The difference between them is that there is no one more ruthless than a child, who doesn't grasp the concept of permanent consequences. Change the channel.

OK, the Smiths. Two kids left, they lost the youngest in November. Accident, completely unexpected. His presents are still wrapped in the attic. First time the kids have almost had fun since it happened, and they feel strange about it. They don't know it, but most of the reason they feel odd is because Joe's ghost is standing right there next to them; he's plain as day on the video. I am telepathically willing his parents, go upstairs and bring little Joe's presents down - he wants to see what he got. It never works, but it was worth a try.

I really wish they'd never mixed me up in this business about rewarding good kids and punishing bad kids. Parents desperately want their kids to believe that people get what they deserve. Well, the cruel truth is that practically nobody gets what the deserve. Not Terrible Tommy and certainly not Little Joe. I'm not saying grab some two year old and tell them that horrible things happen to good little children for no particular reason. The youngest kids certainly aren't ready for the truth yet. But that's no reason to indoctrinate them into a wicked, vicious lie, a lie we hang like a millstone around the necks of bereaved parents.

It isn't just that we didn't even celebrate Christmas back when I was walking the Earth as a mortal. One thing you lean in 1600 years is that feasts change. If we have to nick a holiday from Mithra, well, I'm not complaining. I baptized many a pagan in my day, and if I have to baptize his festivals as well, it's a small price to pay. In fact, this was a well established practice back in my day. A spiritual man has to feast and he has to atone. If he can do so without drawing attention to himself, it's safer, on more than one level.

But if you really knew my story, you know there's a terrible irony in my being picked to represent the idea of Earthly reward and retribution, a pagan idea if I ever heard one.

When I was bishop in Myra, there was a poor family that had the bad luck of having produced three daughters and no sons. Three dowries they couldn't pay, no sons to support them in their old age. Back then, being an unmarried woman of a certain age was as good as being an outcast. One thing you need to understand about Christian communities is that they have two pillars, women and the poor. Once Diocletian was out of the picture, we had everything: the finest icons, the richest vestments, vessels of gold, rare incense, all paid for by the generosity of the poor. So, I put these two things together - rich church, poor family with three girls, and I decided to, well, redistribute things a bit.

I will confess that I'm not the most modest of men, far from it. But I wouldn't be bringing up my little bit of ancient history except to point out that while there are many lessons we could draw from it, "life is fair" is not one of them. "It doesn't take much to make a hero" would be better. What I would like people to take away from this story is the idea that life is not fair, and if you want justice you have go out and make some yourself.

It takes so little. What I did in Myra was hardly more than sound management. Investing in our best customers, you might say. But it didn't take long for people to start make a ridiculous fuss over the thing. It was nice having a church named in my honor by Justinian, but it didn't stop there. I thought the matter had reached the peak of absurdity in 1087, when Italian freebooters stole my bones and had them shipped on the sly to Apulia so they could be venerated. Was I ever wrong.

You people need to get a grip on yourselves. It mystifies me utterly how people can be so sentimental yet hard hearted. You're like ants drowning in honey. Every time I hear one of you giving a homily about the true meaning of Christmas I want to sieze you and shout: Wake up! Your time is at hand! You don't have time for this nonsense.

I don't want to be totally negative here. There are bright spots. Look, look. These are the Mooneys, Jasper and Ted. They're adult brothers. Both were definitely naughty as kids, but with their nasty parents playing them off against each other you couldn't blame them. As soon as they could, they got out of the house and never looked back. They lost touch until this year when both parents, who were divorced twenty years ago, happened to die within a few weeks of each other. There's lots of death this year, same as every year. Jasper and Ted renewed their acquaintance during two successive and grueling death vigils and now they're visiting each other on Christmas. Fears of an uncomfortable situation were greatly exaggerated. Their wives like each other, and their children, who are blessedly normal and reasonably good, are playing happily together. Now the Mooneys are discovering that a lot of their childhood memories really aren't that bad.

Doesn't that warm your heart?

Of course not, because you're a cynical bastard. There isn't a torch in the Home Depot catalog that burns hot enough to raise the temperature of your heart by a single degree. You never waste an opportunity to prove to the world how cynical you are, but you don't have to prove anything to me. You forget that I see into your heart and I can measure to the last atom the cynical part you give to the world against the tender part you keep for your own use. I know exactly how cynical you are. Because I made you that way.

For that I'm truly sorry, I really am. I'd take it all back if I could.

Will Men Ever Pass the Turing Test?

The BBC is reporting on an art installation in which robotic benches and trash bins interact: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4077680.stm. The benches will flock together and sing to greet the sunrise; each device will have it's own personality and preferences as to other devices.

Of course fans of Douglas Adams will be reminded of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which the robots produced by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation are next to useless because they're equiped with "Genuine People Personalities". Management theoriests have a term, "agency costs", which, roughly speaking, refers to the cost of an employee pursuing his own agenda over that of the organization that employs him. You can think of rock star CEOs using their companies as personal piggy banks, but it applies to uncooperative behavior on all levels down to the lowliest corporate functions. But unlike the case of uncooperative people, you can't go to an intelligent elevator's boss and complain it's hard to work with. The elevator merely has to be useful enough that tolerating it is slightly cheaper than ripping it out and replacing it. Come to think of it this strategy isn't unknown among people working in large enterprises either.

There's also a theory among roboticists that states that when faced with a technology that behaves in somewhat human ways, people's minds will tend to fill in the gap, humanizing the technology. Everybody has known somebody who thinks their old car, with its quirky "personality", must somehow be alive. But (the theory runs) if technology gets too close, then we will to instead focus on the subtle ways the technology falls short of actual humanity. Video game designers are reaching the point where they can do photorealistic depictions of characters, even to the point of modeling how light is scattered and reflected by the layers of human skin. The results are, ironically, an eerie impression of non-humanity, as if they had filmed an animated corpse.

Of course, it may be we ourselves fall short of expectations in various subtle ways as well. With that in mind, I present a little fable of the near future, featuring intelligent dust-bins and benches and people who... Well, let's say some things never change.

...

(Joe, a young man in his mid twenties, is on the way to an appointment in a city park. He's running late, but he realizes he's forgotten his watch. )

Joe: Bin, do yo have the time?

Bin: It's quarter past nine. By the way the bins down 3rd street say there's a rain squall heading this way; you might want to duck inside until it passes.

Joe: Is there a Starbucks around here?

Bin: No, but there's an independent espresso shop at 150, just half a block north of here. They left a promotional message on me, would you like to hear it?

Joe: Uh, no thanks.

(Later, at the park.)

Joe: Bench, have you seen a girl named Mary?

Bench: Somebody was sitting on me for about five minutes earlier this morning, but I don't know if that's who you're looking for. That was about 8 am.

Joe: Well if she shows up, tell her that I waited for half an hour but I had to leave.

(Some minutes later, Mary, an attractive young woman about Joe's age, walks up briskly. She's obviously not in a good mood; for one thing she's soaking wet. )

Mary: Was there somebody waiting for somebody here?

(Silence)

Bench: I'm sorry, dear, were you talking to me?

Mary: Yes, was somebody waiting for me here?

Bench: Well, somebody was here at about 8AM. About 10 there was a young man who was here for about five minutes. He left a message for somebody he was waiting for.

Mary: What was the message?

Bench: I'm sorry, I'm afraid it might be personal; would you mind telling me your name, dearie?

Mary: My name is "Mary Moe."

Bench: Well, he said if Mary shows up, I should tell her he had waited for her for half an hour.

Mary: But you said he was only here for five minutes? Around 10 AM?

Bench: Yes. He arrived here at 10 AM, four minutes and five seconds, and left at 10 AM, eight minutes and fifty three seconds. That makes a total four minutes and forty eight seconds.

Mary: Oooh. How can he be such a jerk!

Bench: I'm sorry dearie, I can't help you with that. You sound like you might be in trouble. If you need a real person to talk to, I can put you in touch with one. Are you in trouble?

Mary: Uh, no thanks, I'm fine.

Bench: Don't mention it.

(Later on that day Mary calls Joe)

Mary (on phone): Joe, you jerk! You stood me up!

Joe: No I didn't! I waited for half an hour! I left a message with the bench, the one that sounds like somebody's grandmother!

Mary: You idiot. The bench told me you were only there for only five minutes. And you were late. And you were supposed to meet me by the statue of Douglas Adams, not Lewis Carroll.

Joe: Which statue of Adams?

Mary: The Equestrian one you dope. The seats at the big monument are granite.

Joe: Oh, no! I hate that bench. It's so crabby.

Mary: Not as crabby as I am.

Joe: OK, look, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you I swear!

Mary: Yeah right.

Joe: No, really. Meet me this afternoon at the bench by the pond.

Mary: Which bench?

Joe: The one that sounds like Barry White.

Mary: Oooh! I love that one.

...

There's a test posed by the mathematician Alan Turing , as way to judge whether a machine has achieved intelligence or not. The test and all its variations boil down to this: You interact with something that is either a machine, or a person, and if you can't tell the difference then you have to admit machine is at least as intelligent as the person. Naturally, you have to contrive this interaction to hide information that is irrelevant to intelligence from the judge. For example, the judge can't see the person he is interacting with face face, but only over a computer link. Initially, this may be difficult, but given sufficient time, the judge can distinguish between true intelligence, which understands what it is talking about, and simulated intelligence, which uses clever strategies designed to evoke favorable results statistically frequently.

Which raises the question: Will men ever pass the Turing Test when it comes to women's feelings?