Month: April 2003

In the article Einstein and Newton showed signs of autism, the author claims that even the most famous scientists can thank their genius on a mental handicap which is both restrictive and expansive at the very same time. You see, Newton "hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat, and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the few friends he had." And then, let's have a look at Einstein who was "a loner, and repeated sentences obsessively until he was seven years old. He became a notoriously confusing lecturer." Does this qualify one for autism? Well, then I guess I am autistic also. The chances are that you also qualify to jump on the band-wagon. Welcome to the club.

Go away now, I am listening to some soma. SomaFM is a listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative internet radio broadcasting from San Francisco to the world. For lots of inspiration and great music, I often tune into the Groove Salad, Drone Zone, Secret Agent and Beat Blender. "An intoxicating or hallucinogenic beverage, used as an offering to the Hindu gods and consumed by participants in Vedic ritual sacrifices."

There are a number of momentous events in the life of a startup business which you should appreciate as much as you can when they come. Respect yourself for what it has become and even if there are no customers yet at least you have somehow managed it this far. The first momentous step is official registration in the Chamber of Commerce (which anyone can do really). The second is printing your first set of company cards and later handing them out to potential customers and/or partners. The third is the kick-off date for the official start. But there is more. You see, I am happy to announce that I have somehow managed to attain the big bad step called number four. My very first advertisement in the newspaper.

Rijn en Gouwe, 28 april 2003.

While doing the groceries this morning, I had to dash to the nearest news stand and purchase the morning edition of the Rijn en Gouwe, a local newspaper with a reading public of nearly 45 thousand. There must be one or two souls out there wanting some professional work. Certainly, I am very confident.

Now it is high time to make my way to step number five: my first (paying) customer. I hope this happens in the not too distant future. I have alot to offer, the finest quality, and at a very reasonable price!

I have been contemplating it now for some time, and after much rumination I have decided to place an advertisement in the local newspapers in order to make myself known and attract droves of rich and willing customers. The advertisement will be forty by forty centimeters and it will cost me € 90.90 for a single placement. I have a chosen a simple and straight-forward approach, and this is what it will look like:

Brengt uw website wat u ervan verwacht?

» Het kan nog beter! En... voor een redelijke prijs.

Professionele analyse, ontwerp en advies om
van uw Internet-site een booming business
te maken.

Nieuwsgierig naar onze aanpak?
Bel 0182-536616 of mail info@gishteq.com

GISHTEQ
www.gishteq.com

For all you unfortunate souls out there who are unable to decipher all this gutteral Dutch drivel, I will attempt to translate it into readable English. Here goes:

Is your website doing what it's supposed to do?

» Make it work even better! And... for a decent price.

Professional analysis, design and advice can
make your Internet-site into a real
booming business.

Curious how we do it?
Call 0182-536616 or mail info@gishteq.com

GISHTEQ
www.gishteq.com

I would say that there are probably few souls out there who can resist this declaration of my unbelievably professional services, guaranteed to improve your e-business beyond your wildest dreams. And all for a reasonable and solid price. When you have a good idea, it can bring you a long way, I think.

Let's just say that he could not stop shaking his head back and forth when he heard the news. Again, the same old news. He took to the corner and sat down on the nearest chair, somewhat precluded by the shadow that was not there. They must have told him that a thousand times by now, so it was certainly nothing new. Even though they kept on insisting, he knew they were wrong and that there was a better way.

You see, if it is such a vital part of his personality, one of the core aspects of development, a stage he still has to go through, then why should they expect him to have to get rid of it? Before it even happened? As if ripping out some vital organ because it was not functioning properly could ever be the cure to all his problems. Shame on them for thinking that. Shame on them trying to make him think that also.

Yet every single time he went back they said that he would seriously have to consider removing it completely from his psyche. Rip it out, so to say. Strange how much they insisted, almost as if they were sincerely afraid of the consequences. The so-called consequences to him, to his surrounding, to the things that were and were not there, whatever.

He knew better than that, but he also knew that they would never change their minds. Professionals, well educated and stubborn. Thinking that they knew it better. So he had a plan, and it was a very ingenious scheme, he had to admit even to himself. Not that he liked to brag. Chuckling quietly to himself, he thought out this plan one more time. It would be the very last time. The final reckoning, just like some film that was about to be released for the very first time, a premier. Sitting there on his chair in the corner, he knew that it was high time for action.

And this is what he had in mind. You see, since he could not extricate this core nucleus of his being and survive, it would be necessary to repackage it into another form. The essence would remain the same, but the outer shell would be changed in order for the concealment to work. He compared it to taking a small and invaluable gift, putting it in a differently shaped box, and then to convince them even more, re-wrapping all of it in a completely new and improved wrapping paper. A repackaged deal, what a discount! Fantastic! Forget about the ribbon, that would only give it all away in the end.

So that is exactly what he did. In the end.

That afternoon when they found him lying outside on the ground right in front of the river flowing by, he looked very, very peaceful. Oh dear, what had happened now? Was it our fault? They tried to wake him up, but at first he remained motionless, nothing happened. Finally, he opened his eyes and smiled up at them. Just a bunch of shadows surrounding him and asking all these questions. Questions, questions and even more questions. Never any answers.

He got up and brushed the dust and blades of grass from his pants. He ran his fingers through his hair and readjusted his cap which had slipped ever so slightly over his left ear curling it down. Then he went on and on about how it had been extricated. Yes it had. How it had disappeared with ease, so surprisingly fast. He felt better, and they could see that also. They had never seen him smile like this before. He's cured, he must be cured!

Little did they know that the form, the thing, the core of his inner being, the glob of hardened clay, that corner of the shadow over in the far distance, was still there. In the same place, in the same dimension of time, but it had taken on a new and pleasing form which concealed itself quite nicely. Concealed and yet ever present, if they looked.

They also felt happy for him as he walked away in the distance. They were relieved they would not have to continue repeating the same thing to him over and over again. Save some money, a fine discount indeed!

The man thought some more, turned the corner and went his merry way. No longer would he have to try and save this part of him from being taken away.

Here's something clever I thought up the other day and decided to use on my new GishTeq website to spruce things up some.

What it does is generate a bulleted list of all the web pages as links in alphabetical order according to the title. Just add the EXEC-include (SSI) statement wherever and load it up for the surprise.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT # # sitemap.pl #    Print a web site map as a bullet-list. Pages #    are listed alphabetically as links. # #    Copyright (c) GishTeq 2002-2003. #    All rights reserved. # #  URL:    http://www.gishteq.com #  E-mail: info@gishteq.com # use strict; use HTML::TokeParser; my @allfiles; my $ff; # This is the complete CGI-path to the directory. my $pathdir = "/home/users/kiffin-the-gish/public_html"; # This is the HTTP-path to the directory. my $htmlpath = "http://www.gishteq.com"; print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; opendir(DX, $pathdir) or die "error: $!"; @allfiles = grep { $_ ne '.' and $_ ne '..' and ($_ =~ /\.html$/i) } readdir DX; closedir DX; my %map; foreach $ff (@allfiles) {   my $file = $pathdir . "/" . $ff;   my $p = HTML::TokeParser->new(shift||$file);   my $title = $ff; # Just in case.   # Try and extract the title, if possible.   if ($p->get_tag("title")) { $title = $p->get_trimmed_text; }   # In order for this to work, all titles must be unique!   $map{$title} = $ff; } print "<ul>\n"; for $ff (sort keys %map) # Sort by title. {   my $fname = $map{$ff};   # Alright, let's print 'em out.   print "<li><a href=\"$htmlpath/$fname\" title=\"Go to $fname\">$ff</a></li>\n"; } print "</ul>\n";

An example of it in action can be seen at the GishTeq sitemap page. Hope you like it. Feel free to use it as you see fit.

Baghdad has fallen which means that one more insignificant thug has been beaten by a much larger and more powerful thug. Winner takes all. But where did the smaller thug and all his cronies escape to? And more importantly, where will the bigger and more powerful thug now turn to now that he needs yet another insignificant thug to beat up on in order to build up his confidence even more? The trick is to try and stay out of the way as best as you can without appearing to be on the wrong side. Either you are in on this with us or you are our mortal enemy. Sorry, there is no inbetween.

Well that's me alright. My first taste of future fame has now, now that I am officially listed as a certified consultant for the Webtrends product portfolio. If you cannot find me, I am way down at the bottom of the page at the end of the list. No matter, at least it is a start. Gotta start somewhere, right? Okay folks, it's high time for me to get up and running, so let's go.

Here are the top searches so far for this month. In other words, the following phrases are what people who come to my homepage are looking for:

• hurni
• riding
• barefoot
• discordic colors
• effective java
• enneagrams
• eva luna
• horse
• lingo
• poems
• previous lives
• sabien
• switserland
• tao
• vous prie de vous y rendre

Thanks to the fine (free) search service provided by Atomz.

Although Lennart was unable to get on base the three times he was up to bat, he did make a couple of magnificent catches in the outfield. As a proud father I found it necessary to jump up and down and cheer loudly. While this was just a practice game, I am sure that there is much potential for the team to win many games this season. I look forward to being a spectator (as long as my son gives me permission to attend) and rooting the Braves on to victory.

I must have been taking my shower for ten minutes when I suddenly realized that the whole bathroom was slowly filling up with water. As a result I was wading around up to my knees which was a strange and unfamiliar feeling. For some reason, the drain had plugged up and the water level had risen to about two feet. The whole surface of water was cluttered with various loose items like flotsam of personal belongings left over after an ocean liner had recently sunk. I dove under the water to see if I could discover what had caused the shower to get all plugged up. Much to my shock and dismay, I discovered a body of a plump and seemingly healthy-looking baby floating face-down near the bottom. Drowned and not breathing and hanging there just above the drain.

I knew that I was nearing my destination when I spotted the strange folks wandering towards that large hall off in the distance. To my left there was this tall guy with his left hand poised in the air as if he were holding a lease of some invisible dog he was walking. Over to my right and a little farther away this sad-looking character was laughing and joking out loud to himself. This lady had attached herself to me explaining endlessly about her teenage son and how she was concerned about him and that was why she was coming here and on and on.

I had decided to attend the yearly Nationaal Fonds Geestelijke Volksgezondheid seminar in Amsterdam and it would be an interesting event. I am a paying member of the NFGV (which when translated in broken English stands for something like "National Fund Public Mental Health") so could attend this event for a slight discount, ten euros. Not that the money really matters that much. I was especially interested in the presentations that would be given by various famous Dutch psychiatrists covering such topics as autism, schizophrenia, manic depression, cultural differences between patient and therapist, treatment of men versus woman, childhood disorders, biological psychology, laughing therapy, etc.

Yes, I had come to the right place and it would be an interesting day. Here are a few points of interest:

• One fourth of those suffering from schizophrenia end up completely recovering from the disease in later life.
• Thirty years ago they blamed the parents for causing their kids to become autistic.
• There is a fifty per cent chance that if one suffers an instance of depression there will be a repeat within ten years.
• In general, women blame themselves for their problems whereas men try to find an external reason (beyond their control).
• There is a scientific correlation between certain gene sequences and the chances of acquiring given mental diseases.

A common misconception from which the majority of the people suffer is the idea that one continuously has to prepare for the future. Most if not all of our actions and efforts are directed towards an upcoming cause, be it the next day, next week, following year or the end of our lives. Strange when you think about it. What is happening right now seems to be ignored for a better collective purpose with which everyone else is preoccupied. Some day I will do this and I will do that. If there were no future then what would we do? I am not talking about the end of the world or dying of cancer or something else terrible. I mean just that supposing the future did not exist that it was a figment of our imagination, what then? Perhaps it is better to sit down today and think about this so-called dilemma.

They claim that a new business can get truly amazing results by using some emailing marketing scheme or other. In fact, on a daily basis I receive tons of these ridiculous emails myself. I totally disagree with this claim of so-called success. This maaner of selling is the quickest way not only to aggravate potential customers with what they see as nothing less than spam, but also to bring your company down as just another bogus and customer-unfriendly organization out to make a quick buck (euro).