• Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.
• Old actors never die, they just drop apart.
• Old archers never die, they just bow and quiver.
• Old architects never die, they just lose their structures.
• Old bankers never die, they just lose interest.
• Old basketball players never die, they just go on dribbling.
• Old beekeepers never die, they just buzz off.
• Old bookkeepers never die, they just lose their figures.
• Old bosses never die, much as you want them to.
• Old cashiers never die, they just check out.
• Old chauffeurs never die, they just lose their drive.
• Old chemists never die, they just fail to react.
• Old cleaning people never die, they just kick the bucket.
• Old cooks never die, they just get deranged.
• Old daredevils never die, they just get discouraged.
• Old deans never die, they just lose their faculties.
• Old doctors never die, they just lose their patience.
• Old electricians never die, they just lose contact.
• Old farmers never die, they just go to seed.
• Old garagemen never die, they just retire.
• Old hackers never die, they just go to bits.
• Old hardware engineers never die, they just cache in their chips.
• Old hippies never die, they just smell that way.
• Old horticulturists never die, they just go to pot.
• Old hypochondriacs never die, they just lose their grippe.
• Old investors never die, they just roll over.
• Old journalists never die, they just get de-pressed.
• Old knights in chain mail never die, they just shuffle off their metal coils.
• Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
• Old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal.
• Old limbo dancers never die, they just go under.
• Old mathematicians never die, they just disintegrate.
• Old milkmaids never die, they just lose their whey.
• Old ministers never die, they just get put out to pastor…
• Old musicians never die, they just get played out.
• Old number theorists never die, they just get past their prime.
• Old numerical analysts never die, they just get disarrayed.
• Old owls never die, they just don’t give a hoot.
• Old pacifists never die, they just go to peaces.
• Old professors never die, they just lose their class.
• Old photographers never die, they just stop developing.
• Old pilots never die, they just go to a higher plane.
• Old policemen never die, they just cop out.
• Old preachers never die, they just ramble on, and on, and on, and on….
• Old printers never die, they’re just not the type.
• Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address.
• Old programming wizards never die, they just recurse.
• Old quarterbacks never die, they just pass away.
• Old schools never die, they just lose their principals.
• Old sculptors never die, they just lose their marbles.
• Old seers never die, they just lose their vision.
• Old sewage workers never die, they just waste away.
• Old skateboarders never die, they just lose their bearings.
• Old sailors never die, they just get a little dingy.
• Old Soldiers never die. Young ones do.
• Old steelmakers never die, they just lose their temper.
• Old students never die, they just get degraded.
• Old tanners never die, they just go into hiding.
• Old typists never die, they just lose their justification.
• Walt Disney didn’t die. He’s in suspended animation.
• Old white water rafters never die, they just get disgorged.
• Old wrestlers never die, they just lose their grip.

My soul, to your domain gave I all wisdom to drink all new wines, and also all immemorially old strong wines of wisdom.

My soul, every sun shed I upon you, and every night and every silence and every longing:- then grewest you up for me as a vine.

My soul, exuberant and heavy dost you now stand forth, a vine with swelling udders and full clusters of brown golden grapes:-Filled and weighted by your happiness, waiting from superabundance, and yet ashamed of your waiting.

My soul, there is nowhere a soul which could be more loving and more comprehensive and more extensive! Where could future and past be closer together than with you?

My soul, I have given you everything, and all my hands have become empty by you:- and now! Now sayest you to me, smiling and full of melancholy: “Which of us oweth thanks?-Doth the giver not owe thanks because the receiver received? Is bestowing not a necessity? Is receiving not- pitying?”

My soul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: thine over-abundance itself now stretcheth out longing hands!

Your fulness looketh forth over raging seas, and seeketh and waiteth: the longing of over-fulness looketh forth from the smiling heaven of thine eyes!

And verily, My soul! Who could see your smiling and not melt into tears? The angels themselves melt into tears through the over-graciousness of your smiling.

Your graciousness and over-graciousness, is it which will not complain and weep: and yet, My soul, longeth your smiling for tears, and your trembling mouth for sobs.

“Is not all weeping complaining? And all complaining, accusing?” Thus speakest you to yourself; and therefore, My soul, wilt you rather smile than pour forth your grief-Than in gushing tears pour forth all your grief concerning your fulness, and concerning the craving of the vine for the vintager and vintage-knife!

But wilt you not weep, wilt you not weep forth your purple melancholy, then wilt you have to sing, My soul!- Behold, I smile myself, who foretell you this:

-You wilt have to sing with passionate song, until all seas turn calm to hearken unto your longing,-Until over calm longing seas the bark glideth, the golden marvel, around the gold of which all good, bad, and marvellous things frisk:-Also many large and small animals, and everything that hath light marvellous feet, so that it can run on violet-blue paths,-Towards the golden marvel, the spontaneous bark, and its master: he, however, is the vintager who waiteth with the diamond vintage-knife,-your great deliverer, My soul, the nameless one- for whom future songs only will find names! And verily, already hath your breath the fragrance of future songs,-Already glowest you and dreamest, already drinkest you thirstily at all deep echoing wells of consolation, already reposeth your melancholy in the bliss of future songs!- My soul, now have I given you all, and even my last possession, and all my hands have become empty by you:- that I bade you sing, behold, that was my last thing to give!

That I bade you sing,- say now, say: which of us now- oweth thanks?- Better still, however: sing unto me, sing, My soul! And let me thank you!

Setelah beberapa bulan, kali ini kita mengunjungi rumah Mr Charles Humfrey lagi.
His Excellency British Ambassador ini mengundang para alumni Chevening menemani para padawan Chevening (duh, istilahnya Jedi sekali) yang akan berangkat dan yang baru pulang. Acara yang dikoordiasikan oleh British Council ini masih tetap sederhana dan elegant, tidak berlebihan. Malah menunya rada kurang (eit, aku nggak mengeluh, cuman kelaparan). Over all, yang menarik tentu kesempatan ketemu rekan-rekan lama yang menghilang, dan juga rekan-rekan baru, dan berbincang tentang tema-tema yang luar biasa banyak dimensinya (mind you, aku kurang banyak berdiskusi mengenai masalah2 non telekomunikasi akhir-akhir ini) dengan orang-orang yang menarik itu. Tapi memang, acara semacam ini tidak cukup diset beberapa jam saja. Sudah diperpanjang pun, rasanya belum cukup. Mungkin perlu semacam workshop sampai 1 minggu kali ya ;). Hush. Tapi Humfrey bilang, yang penting adalah terus menjaga relationship antar (ex-)scholars setelah acara-acara ini selesai. D’accord, Monsieur.

Soal puisi Perl, Mr BR jagonya. Jago koleksi maksudnya. I wonder if he ever composed his own poetry (in Perl or any other languages). This one is from him, dikirim ke mail list teknologia:

if ((light eq dark) && (dark eq light)
&& ($blaze_of_night{moon} == black_hole)
&& ($ravens_wing{bright} == $tin{bright})){
my $love = $you = $sin{darkness} + 1;
};

… which was derived from these lyrics, by Jim Steinman’s song The Invocation:

If light were dark and dark were light
The moon a black hole in the blaze of night
A raven’s wing as bright as tin
Then you, my love, would be darker than sin.

Ada di site Nethistory, dan cukup menarik dikaji ulang: The historical inaccuracy of Arpanet claims to Internet origins.

Umumnya orang percaya bahwa Internet ditemukan oleh Pentagon tahun 1969, bahkan dengan bumbu bahwa Internet dimaksudkan untuk membuat jaringan yang mampu bertahan terhadap serangan nuklir. Maka tahun 2004 lalu, dirayakanlah 35 tahun Internet. Namun ternyata, tidak semua orang merayakan, atau menyepakati versi kelahiran Internet ini.

Site ini membahas beberapa kemungkinan sejarah Internet, yang memang tidak tunggal, dari banyak rujukan alternatif. Beberapa kriteria yang diujikan untuk setiap fakta sejarah tentang network yang dianggap sebagai cikal bakal Internet adalah:

• Apakah jaringan itu merupakan penghubung antar network?
• Apakah jaringan itu melibatkan komputer?
• Apakah jaringan itu melibatkan komunikasi antar manusia?
• Apakah jaringan itu nyata, bukan sekedar teori?

Kalau sebuah network lolos kriteria itu, ujian akhirnya adalah menentukan: apakah network itu memang “Internet” yang pertama?

Sila baca-baca sendiri di sana. Saya sudah bilang: cukup asyik. Beberapa hal yang dihasilkan dalam site itu:

1. There are a number of valid claims to origins of the Internet.
2. Although an original date and place might be obtainable for the first networked transmission that could be called an Internet, the result would need by definition to include more than one party or network, and is unlikely to be a satisfactory or useful conclusion.
3. Not only US projects were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
4. Not only government funded US research programs were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
5. Not only telcos and the commercial sector were involved in the beginnings of the Internet.
6. Neither Arpanet nor TCP/IP is present in all valid theories.

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