-- Start log: Wednesday, October 3, 2001 9:03:46 pm ASI Meeting Server time -- 

Greg says, "BRB"
Greg says, "B"
Greg says, "It looks like Scotty is still trying to get connected" Scottyg
says, "No, I'm connected."
Scottyg says, "Was just playing shuffle with my clone." Greg says, "Aha!"
Greg says, "I think we're the Moon Society tonight." Scottyg says, "Yep. I
guessed wrong, had my clone here & me there." Greg says, "Hey, ya had half
a chance!" Scottyg says, "Good thing we don't have four or five
organizations rotating meetings." Greg says, "So, what exciting things are
happening in the Moon Society at the first of October?" dcarson switches
places with dcarson-1
Scottyg says, "The nomination ballot letters are in the mail." Greg says,
"Hooray!"
Greg says, "I shall post a note to artemis-list." Greg says, "When is our
next input to the IRS due for the 501c3 application?" Scottyg says,
"November...22?"
Greg says, "When were the ballots mailed?" Scottyg says, "Monday & Tuesday."
dcarson-1 says, "sp people should be seeing them tomorrow and on" Scottyg
says, "I think internationals went Monday, the rest Tuesday." Greg says,
"Should we also accept nominations via email?" dcarson-1 says, "sure"
Scottyg says, "I can't think of any reason why not." Greg [to what]:
address?
Scottyg says, "So Greg, now the ball is in your court. We need to have
elections." Greg says, "Yup. I guess I need to find a place to have a
meeting. Silly me. I forgot about that again." Scottyg says, "Lets
see....The board list is a closed list I think." dcarson-1 says, "I think
we have web based polling sw" Greg says, "We have two board positions
open?" Scottyg says, "Four officers and two board members." Greg says, "got
it"
Greg says, "What's the date of the first Saturday in November?" Greg says,
"I think should accept final ballots via email, too; if-and-only-if the
sending address comes from the member's address as registered in Team
Director, and we can confirm the ballot with an email response." Scottyg
says, "First Saturday in November i the 3rd" Scottyg says, "is too"
Greg says, "OK, that's Election Day."
Greg says, "We still need to decide on an email address for folks to write
to." dcarson-1 says, "election@"
Greg says, "It has to be an address we can send FROM, as well." Greg says,
"Aha! That might work!"
Greg says, "That would bounce to you, Dana?" dcarson-1 says, "you can set
the from address to anythig you want usually" dcarson-1 says, "yes"
dcarson-1 says, "or I can set it to forward to someone(s)" Greg says, "I'm
thinking of appointing you as our election official, since you're not
holding an office that's up for voting." Greg says, "Can you count ballots
for the 200 eligible voters?" Greg says, "(Of whom probably 10 will bother
to vote?)" dcarson-1 says, "sure"
Greg says, "OK then. <gavel> Dana Carson is hereby appointed the official
election official." Greg says, "Hmmm ... what do we call that?" Scottyg
says, "And I'll gather the ones that come to the P.O. Box." Scottyg says,
"Should I leave those unopened?" dcarson-1 says, "just mail them to me in a
bigger bundle?" Greg [to Background Effects Generator]: eligible, someone
has to be a member for 2 years. What's the 2-year cut-off date? Greg says,
"2 years prior to November 3?" Greg says, "Geez ..."
Greg says, "To be eligible, someone has to be a member for 2 years. What's
the 2-year cut-off date?" Greg says, "I **HATE** that social verb." Scottyg
says, "I think 2 years prior to the election." Greg says, "November 3 it
is, then."
Scottyg says, "Dana, yes - I'll send them along from time-to-time." Greg
says, "OK, let me dump this note so everybody can check it."

Nominating ballots were mailed yesterday to all eligible members of the
Moon Society. The international ballots were mailed on Monday. So they
should show up in your mailbox Real Soon Now.

     The offices that need to be filled are:
        President
        Vice President
        Secretary
        Treasurer
        2 positions on the board of directors
     You are welcome and encouraged to nominate yourself for any of
these offices.  The basic requirement for holding office is that your
membership must be current, and you must have been a member of the
Moon Society or Artemis Society International since November 3, 1999.
     We plan to hold the elections in Somewhere in Las Vegas on
Saturday, November 3, 2001.  We will accept nominations and final
ballots via email, but only if they are send from the member's email
address registered in Team Director, and then only if we can confirm
the ballot by return mail.  So you can vote by paper mail, email, or
in person at the meeting on November 3.
     You can send email nominations or final ballots to:
          elections@moonsociety.org
     Dana Carson is our official receiver of email ballots, and will
receive mail sent to this address.  Scotty Gammethaler will be
handling paper ballots sent to Plano.

Greg says, "That's it."
Greg says, "Think it's OK?"
dcarson-1 says, "sounds OK to me"
Severy says, "Background Effects Generator?! Where the heck did it find
that!" dcarson-1 [to ]: be
Severy says, "Looks good to me, Greg!"
Greg says, "Um ... I think I'm carrying it." dcarson-1 [to ]: bg
Severy [to be]: or not to be
Greg says, "That is, I think I'm carrying the Background Effects
Generator." Severy says, "Yeah, it must have matched on something specific
to you, Greg" Greg says, "I don't suppose there's any way to make that
silly verb go away huh?" dcarson-1 says, "I think you can override it on
your character" Greg says, "I've tried."
dcarson-1 says, "or remove the social verb package from you" Greg says,
"Didn't work."
Severy says, "It's part of a bunch of verb aliases that are messy to remove
just one" Greg says, "It's not coming from the generic player." Greg says,
"Where the heck is it defined?" Severy says, "It's in one of the feature
objects, you can remove that feature object" Greg says, "The only features
I have are #92, #110, and #129" dcarson-1 says, "there is a way to install
a package of verbs etc from another object, ther is a variable that tells
what packages you have" dcarson-1 says, "one of those 3 features has that
verb, remove the feature and they all go away" Severy says, "It's in #91"
Greg says, "Dang! I don't have that feature!" Greg says, "Yup.
#203.features={#92, #110, #129}" Severy says, "Hmm, you got me, then"
Severy says, "One thing I could look into is making the matching logic a
lot pickier, it really should only match on the full name of a logged-in
player, not any object that remotely resembles it" Severy [to Greg]: testing
Greg says, "Yeah. It converted "be" into "Background Effects Generator""
Severy says, "That was "to gre", it should only match on "to greg"" Greg
says, "And "be" isn't even an alias for the object. "beg" is, though."
dcarson-1 says, "designed to let people be short in what they type, for a
social moo thats good" Greg says, "It's really a worthless verb, though. It
doesn't save keystrokes; all it does is add [square brackets]" Greg says,
"It definitely needs a is_player test." dcarson-1 says, "lets people see
when your talking to someone instead of the group but not whispering" Greg
says, "OK, I sent that message to artemis-list." Greg says, "Hrmph. I
suppose I should have used Team Director to send it to all members."
Scottyg says, "Yep, there's lots of members not subscribed to
artemis-list." Greg says, "I know one!"
Severy [to be]: or not to be
Severy says, "Hmm, that didn't work"
Scottyg says, "Well, I've had a number of things chewing up all my spare
time...." Scottyg says, "The nominations mailing..." Scottyg says, "The
Transorbital project...." Scottyg says, "Building a new staircase in my
house...." Scottyg says, "And routine Moon Society business." Severy [to
be]: or not to be
Severy says, "Arrggh!"
Greg says, "OK, either Team Director is sending notes to all members, or
it's spamming the CIA headquarters. I'm not sure which." Severy laughs.
Severy says, "Rats, my dirty secret has been found out!" Scottyg says, "But
I'm nearing completion on most of those, so I think I'll be able to get
back to the non-profit filing within about a week." Greg says, "Which dirty
secret, Randall?" Scottyg says, "Randall is the CIA spammer!" Greg says, "i
knew it!"
Greg says, "Lured him into a confession!" Greg says, "Boy, whatever Team
Director is doing, it's taking a long time to respond." Greg says, "It *is*
supposed to come back after sending mail and tell me it did something,
right?" Greg says, "Oh. There it is: E-Mail Sent to 289 Addresses" Greg
says, "Unable to send E-Mail to 2 Addresses" Severy says, "Yes, but only
after it has sent the message to everyone" Scottyg says, "I'll check to see
if its spamming scottygamm." Greg says, "Not bad; only 2 bad addresses out
of 291." Severy says, "Yup, and it looks like invalid e-mail address
formats for those two" Scottyg says, "Ok, I got an email from
elections@moonsociety.org." Greg says, "Oh, I set the return address to
elections@moonsociety.org" Scottyg says, "LOL"
Greg says, "Um, I think I did."
Greg says, "Rats, now I'm wondering if I put elections@asi.org" Severy
says, "I got some bounces, did you set up the elections@asi.org alias,
Dana?" Scottyg says, "SEE ABOVE!"
Severy says, "Oops, I mean elections@moonsociety.org" dcarson-1 says, "I
just got about 20-25 bounces it looks like'" Greg says, "Well, at least we
know those are bad addresses in the membership database!" dcarson-1 says,
"not yet, it comes to me anyway so I hadn't done it during the meeting"
Severy says, "Ok, just checking"
Severy says, "Yup, quite a few bounces" Greg says, "At least we know Team
Director works!" Greg says, "In other news, there is no news. Nothing from
NASA about the Steckler Lab. No progress on the moon rover prototype. Not
even a lot of progress on Moon Sims." dcarson-1 says, "I'll save them so we
can cleanup the db" Greg says, "Good idea, Dana."
Greg says, "Are youse guys planning to face the frightening aspect of
visiting Las Vegas next month?" Scottyg says, "The date is crowding me
some. I have to be in Toronto the prior weekend." Greg says, "Oh darn."
Greg says, "I thought we had picked that date because it was clear."
Scottyg says, "I didn't say no...Just trying to rethink my plans." Severy
[to be]: or not to be
Severy kicks the MOO
Scottyg says, "Is that the question?"
Severy says, "I thought I had it working :-(" The MOO kicks back.
Scottyg says, "Randall, remember we were talking about file uploads?"
Severy says, "Vaguely, remind me of the context..." Severy [to take]: the
plunge
Greg [to Background Effects Generator]: to be to Severy says, "Hmm, I've
got it working for my clone, why doesn't it work for me?" Scottyg says, "On
the Transorbital project...You pointed me to
enctype=form_data/multipart...." Severy says, "Oh yes, that one"
Scottyg says, "Turns out PHP makes decoding the result very easy." Severy
says, "I thought it might, it's a common requirement" Greg says, "And
murtherfore, why does it work for me when I don't have feature #91 turned
on?" Scottyg says, "It parses the mime, stores any files in a temporary
location, and sets variables to tell you about the files." Severy says, "I
think there's another 'to' verb outside #91. I *know* I fixed #91!" Greg
says, "Is there a verb for finding out where a verb is programmed?" Severy
says, "Only for wizards"
Scottyg says, "The hard part was getting the (binary) image into the
database. MySQL isn't very binary-friendly." Greg says, "close door"
Greg closes the door to Moon Society leadership room... Greg says, "Just in
case"
Severy says, "Oh well, I'll poke around with 'to' more later, I've got real
code to write" Greg says, "I think somebody just put that in the MOO to
irritate you, Randall." Greg says, "So, does anybody have any other stuff
we need to discuss tonight?" dcarson-1 says, "not me"
Scottyg says, "Nor me."
Greg says, "So, if nobody needs me for anything tonight ..." Greg says,
"Going once ..."
Greg says, "Going twice ..."
Greg says, "Gone!"
Greg has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to cart Greg off to bed. Scottyg says, "If no one
else has anything for me, I'm gonna go get some work done." Scottyg says,
"See ya later."
Scottyg has disconnected.
In a blinding flash of light, Severy vanishes into thin air The housekeeper
arrives to cart Scottyg off to bed. dcarson-1 has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to remove dcarson-1. Greg arrives amidst thundering
applause. Scottyg arrives.
Greg says, "Evening, Scotty!"
Scottyg says, "Evening Greg!"
Greg says, "You probably heard Dan Goldin resigned." Scottyg says, "Yep,
saw it on CNN a little while ago. Haven't heard any details tho." Greg
says, "It's kind of hard to imagine that this is a bad thing." Greg says,
"Well, yesterday Dan Goldin said he wouldn't stand for NASA's new focus on
commercialization. The deputy that Pres. Bush appointed resigned because of
that. Then today, Goldin resigned." dcarson arrives.
Greg says, "I suspect there was some causality there, probably including a
telephone call from the White House." Greg says, "Evening, Dana!"
dcarson says, "helo"
Scottyg says, "I just knew Bush was gonna be a winner!" Greg says, "This
just in from the marketing department: One of the most popular Sims sites
just asked if he could rehost his stuff onto the Moon Sims site." Scottyg
says, "Can you imagine Al Gore handling this terrorist mess?" Greg says,
"Golly. It's hard to guess what Al Gore would have done." Scottyg says, "I
don't even want to think about it." Greg says, "Um, erm, golly. Yeah, it's
a scary thought." Greg says, "Anything less that what we're doing now would
equal surrender." Greg says, "You might have noticed that for the first
time in history I got a little political on the Moon Sims web site."
Scottyg says, "Gore would be too busy making sure we don't offend Arafat."
Greg says, "Maybe he would have sent lots of inexpensive computers to
Afghanistan and laid in some broadband fiber optics to keep them amused."
Scottyg says, "Anyway, let me climb down from my soapbox. :=)" Greg says,
"Yeah, make some room for me on that soapbox!" Scottyg says, "We have
received four responses to the ballot letter so far." Greg says, "Four is
enough, if they nominated a slate of candidates." Scottyg says, "The most
thoughtful was from Arthur Smith." Greg says, "Any new volunteers?"
Greg says, "What did Arthur have to say/" Greg says, "?"
Scottyg says, "President - No nominations." Greg says, "Rats."
Scottyg says, "V.P. - Amy, Randall"
Scottyg says, "Sec - Madhu"
Scottyg says, "Treas - David Schrunk"
Greg says, "Oh, that's a neat idea!"
Scottyg says, "Board - Peter Kokh, David Wetnight, Vik Olliver, Simon
Rowland." Greg says, "I wonder if Madhu and Dave are qualified to hold the
offices." Scottyg says, "He goes on to say that all of the above have been
contacted by him (except Randall) and accepted at least a nomination as
Director." Greg says, "Not to mention Simon. I'm pretty sure of Peter,
David Wetnight, and Vik Olliver." Greg says, "Hooray!"
Greg says, "However, we still need to follow up with an offical letter from
Dana." Scottyg says, "Yep. I'll continue collecting these this week, then
stick them all in an envelope and forward to Dana." Scottyg says, "(This
weekend.)"
dcarson says, "I'll be looking for it"
Greg says, "What this weekend? Send notes this weekend?" dcarson says, "we
are allowed to do waivers if we want IIRC" Scottyg says, "Also got a letter
from E. Philpott (in England). Its chatty, but he finally gets around to
saying "Don't change anything" (re:elections)" Greg says, "I think we're
going have to use a preferential balloting system to make sure we don't get
an ambiguous election result." dcarson says, "and Madhu and Dave would be
good to have" Greg says, "I guess that counts as a nomination of the
existing ossifers. Unfortunately, it would include a recommendation to
leave two offices vacant. :)" Scottyg says, "Yeah, I don't think its widely
known that we are short to ossifers." Scottyg says, "two even"
Greg says, "I mentioned it on artemis-list, but that's about it." Greg
says, "Scotty, I'm assuming you'll stay on as financial officer if we dump
Treasurerness on David Shrunk. Right?" Greg says, "(I don't know what to
call Keeper of the Checkbook.)" Scottyg says, "I'll see that the job gets
done, while offloading as much as possible." Greg says, "Yeah, that's what
I was thinking." Greg says, "Dana, do you have a way to make sure the
nominees are qualified for office?" Greg says, "I think the "member since"
date would do it." dcarson says, "I can look at the data in teamdirector"
Greg says, "Great!"
Scottyg says, "Continuous since" I think....." Greg says, "Still nobody
wants my job, eh?" Greg says, "Yeah, whatever that date field is." Scottyg
says, "Member Since doesn't account for lapses." Greg says, "Oh. I thought
we reset "member since" when it lapses." Scottyg says, "Are we Randal-less
tonight?" Greg says, "He didn't mention that he would not be here. I saw
him on line earlier." Scottyg says, "Same here. Maybe he was late heading
home." Greg says, "The last I saw, a couple of hours ago he was headed out
to pick up Shannon." Greg says, "Maybe they're doing a late dinner."
Scottyg says, "I had a question for him about the Team Director API." Greg
says, "Or maybe he just couldn't stand the thought of starting up that
modem after a day of playing with a 1 megabit broadband." dcarson says,
"bandwidth is addictive"
Scottyg says, "Heh. I have the same problem...." Scottyg says, "1.5 megabit
at work, 28.8K at home." Scottyg says, "*sigh*"
Greg says, "Dana, yup. I'm a serious bandwidth junkie." Greg says, "RAM,
too. And tomorrow qs33 gets pumped to 512 megs." Scottyg says, "Dana, did
you see Tim's message about personal PERL libraries?" dcarson says, "yep,
the problem was that the gd perl module needed a newer version of the gd
shared library, found that and the patch to mke it shared, will finish that
tonight" Scottyg says, "Ok, good, cause were just about done with the rest
of the project." Scottyg says, "we're too"
Scottyg says, "So Greg, Lunar Resources has earned its first income in the
consulting business." Greg says, "Yippee! Did we actually get PAID?"
Scottyg says, "Even have a little money in the bank to show for it." Greg
says, "I've been rooting around, thinking that if I wanted to put in a bid
on a study contract, I should use TLRC as my home institution." Scottyg
says, "Got 1/3. Another 1/3 when Dana finishes his part. Last 1/3 in
another couple of weeks." Greg says, "That would raise all those questions
about overhead costs and benefits and stuff because if I do this, I'll end
up doing it full time." Scottyg says, "Ever get any word on your grant
proposal?" Greg says, "No, darn it."
Greg says, "And I expected to have heard in August." Scottyg says, "Can you
run an inquiry?" Greg says, "I do have a meeting with the Nevada Space
Grant Consortium on the 30th." Greg says, "I can only ask Jim Taranik, who
is head of the NSGC." Greg says, "He is the official principal
investigator." Greg says, "That was one of the rules. Only space grants
could bid. That really chaps." Greg says, "What it means is that of a
$250,000 grant, all but $80,000 disappears into sundry bits of space grant
overhead." Greg says, "I'll probably still take the job if we get it, but
I'm less thrilled about it." Scottyg says, "Yep, but sometimes that's the
cost of doing business." Greg says, "Yeah. There's always overhead cost.
B'b'but 200% overhead?" Scottyg says, "It was 105% years ago when I worked
at Texas Instruments." Greg says, "Yeah, that's about what it runs for
Boeing." Greg says, "In dramatic contrast, the overhead rate at Bigelow
Aerospace is 15%." Greg says, "Of course, that number is due to the bizarre
accounting practices of the company." Greg says, "If you add in the things
that are not accounted for in the rate, it's probably more like 30%."
Scottyg says, "Dana, did you see my latest mail about image files?"

Scottyg says, "So, what do they call these overhead expenses?  They
have to show up somewhere, and a rose by any other name....."
Scottyg says, "Speaking of accounting practices......"

Greg says, "They somehow account for things like payroll & accounting under
a different company." Greg says, "Bigelow Management Company." Greg says,
"And facilities are some other company." Scottyg says, "As a result of
putting our 501c3 application on hold, we have to file an 1120 (corp.
income tax) for 2000. " Greg says, "Bob has more than a hundred little LLC
companies, all kept small enough that he doesn't have to comply with
certain employment laws and taxes." Greg says, "Oops."
Greg says, "When is our response due to the IRS on this next round?" Greg
says, "Can you file that form, Scotty? Do we need to find a CPA or
something?" Scottyg says, "I didn't plan for that when I did last year's
financials, so I'm gonna restate last years P&L, shifting some expenses
from 2001 back into 2000. (Perfectly legit, and actually the correct way to
do it.)" Scottyg says, "Since I didn't think there was gonna be tax, it
wasn't a big deal, but if we have to pay tax, I don't want to pay more than
needed." Scottyg says, "I can file the return, just have to get it done.
Its due in about a week, so I'll be fairly busy until then getting it
done." Greg says, "Yeah, no point in giving the government more money. We
need it more than they do, and besides, if you give them money, it just
encourages them." Greg says, "Is it time to file a return for TLRC or ASI?"
Scottyg says, "There's an accounting principle that says that the expenses
should be reported in the same period as the income." Greg says, "Rather
than reporting at the time the expenses were incurred?" Scottyg says, "But
a large part of the membership expenses for 2000 didn't arrive until 2001,
and thats where they are reported now." Greg says, "I don't think I'll
*ever* understand accounting." Greg says, "It might help if we started
making money out of aluminum." Scottyg says, "I should have said...Expenses
related to an activity should be reported in the same period as the income
for that activity." Scottyg says, "You use Accrued Expenses and deferred
income to do that." Greg says, "OH."
Scottyg says, "LOL"
Greg says, "Then sooner or later you have some fudge factor that evens it
all out?" Scottyg says, "re: TLRC or ASI....no."
Greg says, "When your predicted expenses don't match what you expected?"
Scottyg says, "No, not exactly...Lets say I get an invoice from Jennifer
for $300 for membership processing in January, but its for memberships
received prior to Jan." Scottyg says, "What I do is make an Accrued Expense
entry in December for the $300, so it shows in the same period as the
memberships." Scottyg says, "Then in january, I use jennifer's invoice to
offset the Accrued Expense." Scottyg says, "Basically, Accrued Expense
represents expenses incurred but not recognized because you didn't have the
documentation." Greg says, "Oh, now I get it."
Greg says, "Doesn't that mess up stuff in you have surprise expenses after
you've filed your tax return?" Scottyg says, "Yep, but that's one of the
reasons that tax returns aren't due immediately..." Scottyg says, "And why
most accountants don't like to file too early." Scottyg says, "Dana, did
you see my latest mail about image files?" Greg says, "This almost makes
sense!"
Scottyg says, "Its actually all pretty logical once you understand a few
basic rules." dcarson says, "when did you send it Scotty?" Greg says, "Just
like everything else in the world. Except perl." Scottyg says, "The thing
that gets really messy is the tax rules. Congress & the IRS did that, so it
makes no sense at all." Scottyg says, "Dana, a little before 8:00 CDT."
dcarson says, "OK got it"
Scottyg says, "Even PERL makes sense. Its just rather cryptic at times."
Scottyg says, "Especially regular expressions...." dcarson says,
"standalone image files instead of in the db" Greg says, "Maybe one of
these days I'll get a "perl for dummies" book and try to learn it." Greg
says, "Can a perl program do calls to the mysql database?" dcarson says,
"myes"
Scottyg says, "I saw the winning entry in an informal PERL contest to see
who could create the most obscure implementation that prints out "Hello
World"" Scottyg says, "It was three or four lines of absolute gibberish."
Greg says, "There's gotta be something basically sick about a language that
runs contests to see who can write the most obscure code. :)" Scottyg says,
"Yes, PERL can connect to MySQL." Scottyg says, "And so can PHP and C."
Greg says, "The reason I asked is that I keep coming up with clever things
to do with databases." Greg says, "Darn. I wish we had a good ol' Fortran
compiler on qs33. " Scottyg says, "LOL. But Fortran can't connect to MySQL.
(As far as I know.)" Greg says, "Oh, did I mention that we got a satellite
receiver dish installed? I get NASA TV now!" Greg says, "I'm sure with a
library of extensions it can." Scottyg says, "You really should give PHP a
try. Its a lot easier to learn than PERL, and a lot of it would carry over
to C if you want to get into that." Scottyg says, "And a "Hello World"
program is as simple as:" Scottyg <- ?php
Greg says, "Yeah, PHP looks a lot like the MOO language, and I'm getting
pretty good at that." Scottyg says, "print "Hello World";"
dcarson says, "the MySQL and mSQL book from O'Reilly shows how to use perl
and php and others to access the dbs" Scottyg says, "LOL. The MOO really
played funny games with my PHP." Scottyg says, "should have been:"
Scottyg says, "<?php"
Scottyg says, "print "Hello World";"
Scottyg says, "?>"
Scottyg says, "It typically takes four statements to pull something out of
a database. Two are one-time start up." Greg says, "This sounds like
something that's Worth Learning." Greg says, "And with WSD's trick of being
able to execute the PHP when a web page is published, you can do lots of
nifty tricks!" Greg says, "Without burdening the user with processing."
Scottyg says, "Between PHP on the server and JavaScript on the client, you
can do really clever things." Scottyg says, "Although I get bit
occasionally about trying to look at things on the server side before they
have happened on the client side. :=)" Scottyg says, "I'll be glad to do a
bit of tutoring if you are serious about learning PHP." Scottyg says, "(As
long as we understand that I'm not at the expert level yet...." Greg says,
"Hmm ... maybe I should dig out the notes I wrote about how to set up a
database for the master mesh list and send those to you." Scottyg says, "If
you want to do this on qs33, we'll have to get Randall to create a database
for us. We can populate it with tables and fields once its set up." Greg
says, "Hmmm, the sequel ... this might be what we need to resurrect that
project to create an economic model for the lunar community" Scottyg says,
"(Creating a new database is a minor task.)" Scottyg says, "For that
matter, Dana can probably do it too." Greg says, "When someone creates a
new database, what do you have?" Greg is puzzling over the economic model.
Greg says, "We really need that thing to answer the question of whether a
lunar settlment could be economically vaiable." Greg says, "viable"
Scottyg says, "A workspace basically. It a place to create tables,
protected with a username and password for access control." Greg says, "Or
rather, the question of at what point the settlement becomes
self-supporting." Greg says, "OIC."
Scottyg says, "Have you ever looked at the MySQL admin tools on
https://www.moonsociety.org/admin?" Greg says, "No, I haven't."
Scottyg says, "Go over there and I'll give you a tour." Greg says, "OK"
Greg says, "I'm there"
Scottyg says, "In the "Stock Tools" section, click the MySQL Admin link"
Scottyg says, "This is set up to access the Moon Society's on-line
registration database." Scottyg says, "On the left pane, click the "+""
Scottyg says, "That shows a list of all the tables that have been created."
Greg says, "I see a teeny tiny menu"
Greg says, "Hmmm... maybe I should try this with Exploder. It might be more
legible." Scottyg says, "Do you see "new_registrations" on the menu?" Greg
says, "Didn't help. It must be the font." Greg says, "Yeah, I can make that
out, now that I know what it says." Scottyg says, "Hmmm. Its perfectly
reasonable sized on my browsers. (Netscape & IE both)" Scottyg says, "Ok,
click on new_registrations." Scottyg says, "That shows the names, type, etc
for all the fields in the table." Greg says, "I think it's the font.
Microsoft released one of their fonts so that it looks nice on Windows, but
is illegible on a Mac." Scottyg says, "Can you change the default font
sizes? That might help." Greg says, "I'll try that."
Scottyg says, "Doesn't seem to change the display on my browser." Greg
says, "Didn't help. But it's only the stuff in the menu under the +. The
rest is legible." Greg says, "So this thing defines all the fields in the
database?" Scottyg says, "Anyway, these are a set of tools that can be used
to define the tables and fields for a database, browse the database, add,
edit and delete records, etc." Greg says, "What's the difference between a
varhcar and text?" Greg says, "varchar, too"
Scottyg says, "Its an administrators and/or programmer's tool that we can
copy and set up to maintain a new database anywhere on the server. (The
tools are themselves PHP scripts.)" Scottyg says, "Varchar is a
variable-size text field with a specific size limit. Text is an
arbitrary-sized text field." Scottyg says, "There is a difference in
database efficiency between the two." Greg says, "Oh, I'm beginning to
understand this." Scottyg says, "Decreasing order of efficiency: char,
varchar, text." Greg says, "Is it all PHP?"
Scottyg says, "The tools are. The database they work on is MySQL." Scottyg
says, "The tools are a collection of php scripts in the /admin/mysql
directory. They can be accessed with WSD just like any other directory
contents." Greg says, "Aha! So if I go snooping in there and read some php
scripts it might begin to make sense." Greg says, "And maybe get that book
on MySQL" Greg says, "Hmmm ... still no sign of Randall." Scottyg says,
"Might be, although these are probably a bit complex for a starting point.
Try /admin/reglist.php3 and /admin/viewreg.php3 first." Scottyg says,
"Also, poke around the docs on www.php.org and www.mysql.org." Greg says,
"Oops. I need to be on the secure server, don't I?" Scottyg says, "Ummm.
the PHP link is wrong. Just a sec....." Greg says, "Amazing what a change a
single character can make." Greg says, "Like a zero at the end of my
paycheck." Scottyg says, "Yep, try
https://www.moonsociety.org/cgi-bin/wsd/wsd" Greg says, "I'm digging in
there now. It's slow to respond." Greg says, "But it's coming."
Scottyg says, "Ok, should be www.php.net" Greg says, "I see a file named
/admind/new-reglist.php3. Is that the one?" Scottyg says, "Oh, yep...Sorry.
I forgot the files got renamed to new-whatever" Greg says, "Interesting.
What's this $1200 from a fellow in Norway?" Scottyg says, "Mail-in, not
received. I'm waitin to see if it was a flame." Scottyg says, "You looking
at the code for new-reglist.php3?" Greg says, "Yeah. I copied it and pasted
it into a text editor so I could cancel the modify document request"
Scottyg says, "And I'm looking at my own local (sorta backup) copy."
Scottyg says, "About 2/3 of the way down, there's a statement that starts
out: mysql_connect (...." Greg says, "mysql_connect (qs33, wwwmoon,
luna21);" Greg says, "zat it?"
Scottyg says, "The arguments in that statement are the server name, the
user name, and the password. That is the first step in accessing" Scottyg
says, "the database."
Scottyg says, "The next line selects a specific database." Greg says,
"Could a visitor to the web site get the username and password by doing
View Source?" Scottyg says, "After that, you submit queries to the database
with mysql_query, that returns some sort of result." Scottyg says, "No, the
php source is never sent to the user, only the HTML outside of <?php ?>
blocks, and any output from print and echo statements." dcarson says,
"thats why you don't allow raw GETs to a cgi-bin directory only running the
scripts" Greg says, "Aha! This mess starts to make a lot more sense then."
dcarson says, "some places do mess up and allow it, they tend to be hacked"
Scottyg says, "Access the page in one window while looking at the source in
another. It should be fairly obvious." Greg says, "the print statement is
writing the html code that gets sent to the user?" Scottyg says, "print,
echo, plus anything not in a php block." Scottyg says, "Starting at the top
of new-reglist.php3," Greg says, "Oops.
/usr/virtual/moonsociety/htdocs/footer.php3 needs to be updated to 2001"
Scottyg says, "The 1st statement begins a php block tthat ends on line 6"
Scottyg says, "The HTML after line 6 goes directly to the browser, until
you get to the php after the <TITLE> tag" Greg says, "I see how that works.
The $ idenfies a PHP variable." Scottyg says, "That code echoes the
Document Title, set previously on line 2." Scottyg says, "Yep, thats a hard
rule. PHP variables always must begin with $." Greg says, "Isn't it
superfluous to define the $DOCTITLE variable?" Scottyg says, "Yep."
Greg says, "It looks like it just defines it and then uses it once."
Scottyg says, "Unless you also want to echo it as a page heading." Greg
says, "OIC"
Greg says, "Can WSD interpret its templates from within a PHP statement?"
Greg says, "Like, could this say ..."
Scottyg says, "Look just after the <body> statement." $DOCTITLE =
"<$title>";
Greg says, "Yeah, I see that."
Scottyg says, "Yep, the order of processing is....WSD first subs templates,
then php runs." Scottyg says, "Do you understand what an associative array
is?" Greg says, "Neat! Then we could do some *really interesting* stuff
here." Greg says, "Nope. No idea."
Greg says, "It sounds naughty."
Scottyg says, "Its an arrar with text subscripts instead of numeric ones."
Scottyg says, "So you could have: $color["red"]="*ff0000";" Scottyg says,
"and $color["green"]="*00FF00";" Scottyg says, "etc."
Greg says, "OIC."
Greg says, "And PHP takes care of what the numeric values might be." Greg
says, "I think I'm going to have to get a PHP book and study up on it some
time when I'm awake." Scottyg says, "The standard way to access a row in a
MySQL table is to obtain the row in a query, then send the result through
mysql_fetch_array which returns an associative array for all the fields in
the row." Scottyg says, "then you can obtain the field values with
statements such as $value=$row["fieldname"];" Scottyg says, "I'm probably
confusing you, covering too much ground at once." Greg says, "Yeah, I
really need to study it and try some things to see what they do, using a
database where it doesn't matter if I wreck it." Greg says, "And before
that I should study up on some basic PHP3" dcarson says, "ask Randal to
make you one of your own" Greg says, "Yeah, I'll do that as soon as I think
I understand what I'm asking for." Greg says, "Is PHP3 easier to learn than
C?" Scottyg says, "Yeah, the rules are more relaxed." Scottyg says, "In
particular, it usually isn't necessary to declare variables before using
them." Scottyg says, "PHP deduces the type from context." Scottyg says,
"They will initially be empty strings or zero values." Greg says, "So we
could probably set up a database interface easier with PHP than C." Scottyg
says, "Much easier IMHO."
Scottyg says, "Meanwhile, PHP provides many of the same library functions
as C, so whatever knowledge you have of C carries over pretty well."
Scottyg says, "Try the php web site at www.php.net. They have online docs
and a tutorial." Scottyg says, "Or I can zip up my local copy of the HTML
docs and send them to you." Scottyg says, "(They come with the RedHat Linux
distribution." Scottyg says, "I'm running a local Linux web server, so I
can test scripts here without uploading them to a outside server. I can
also run MySQL, but I'm not doing that right now." Greg says, "OK. I'll add
php.net to my little list of links." Scottyg says, "And after you get up to
speed some on PHP, you can get the MySQL docs at www.mysql.org." Scottyg
says, "BTW, you can get Windows (maybe Mac too) versions of MySQL." Greg
says, "very interesting"
Greg says, "A winows version would not be worth much to me, but a Mac
version certainly would be" Greg says, "I think"
Scottyg says, "And perhaps a command-line version of PHP too." dcarson
says, "upgrade to OS X and you can run PHP and MySQL locally" Scottyg says,
"The expert speaks...."
Greg [to install]: OS-X don't I have to wipe my hard drive? dcarson says,
"I think you can partition it if you have enough room" Greg says, "That
sounds even scarier."
Greg says, "I think I'd rather just buy another firewire disk and back up
to it." dcarson says, "that works"
Scottyg says, "Well, I have food begging to be eaten. Guess I should go see
about that." dcarson says, "backing up my system now that I have a cd
burner" Greg says, "Yeah. I need to get ready for bed." Greg says, "Have a
good evening!"
Greg has disconnected.
Scottyg says, "You too. I'll try to check in here more often, around 8:00PM
my time to help with any questions you have." Scottyg says, "Ack. wish he
would slow down some." Scottyg says, "See ya later Dana."
dcarson says, "see you aroubnd"
Scottyg has disconnected.

-- End log: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 11:30:42 pm ASI Meeting Server time --