Robert

Creationist... "museum"

Sun, 27 May 2007 17:03:37 GMT

Chris Cameron, this one's especially for you -- for those of you that missed it, the NY Times is reporting on a new creationist museum. It's full of dioramas of people and dinosaurs together; it's like a paleontologist/anthropologist's worst nightmare in physical form! By the way, apparently chameleons change color to "talk to" one and another (?!). Yes. I wonder if there are schools that intend on bringing their students on a field trip to this museum... the whole thing is kind of creepy.

Оасушаем аппарат, выпускаем обратно

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 23:08:56 GMT

Have you ever felt outwitted by your own brain? Yesterday I installed iRooster, a program that lets you use your computer as an alarm clock -- it automatically wakes your computer up at a preset time and starts playing music from iTunes. This is very convenient, since it seems that Germans don't believe in radio alarm clocks in hotel rooms, at least not in Hamburg. This was somewhat ok in the other hotels I stayed at several months ago -- they had some weird thing so that you could program the TV as an alarm clock, and it would automatically turn on at the proper time, thus increasing the evilness of the TV twofold.

The Side Design Hotel, which is the hotel I am staying at now, has either decided this feature really isn't necessary -- or at least made it complex enough that even I can't figure out how to perform this operation on the television (and if I can't figure it out...) Presumably getting a hotel rating one star higher than the hotels I stayed at last time means that you will get a better sleep -- because you won't wake up in the morning before your time.

Anyway, since my attempts to shop in Germany in order to find some sort of travel alarm clock (like the sharper image one or something like that) all failed, despite visiting a travel store, a bookstore and a Bose store, I diligently set the alarm on the computer program for 10 AM. I don't really trust the computer to really wake up correctly, since I'm really a luddite at heart, but there's no real reason for me to wake up at 10 AM other than to try and reduce my jet laggedness. And yes, I could have called in for a wakeup call, but that would mean actually speaking and interacting with a person, which I don't think I should have to do (not do I want to do) for something as trivial as setting an alarm.

Since I'm still jet lagged from arriving here on Friday, I woke up several times during the middle of the night -- one of which I realized my error -- I had forgot to unplug my headphones from the computer. Obviously not being able to hear the alarm on the computer speakers (as the computer speakers are muted when the headphones are plugged in) would obviously get in the way of music waking you up in the morning.

So after waking up for the n-th time in the morning, I decide to check my watch. 11:30 AM. Crap. My first though -- why didn't the computer alarm turn on? -- I look at the computer -- it's on. I get up and take a closer look. The application is running and playing music. I look at the headphone jack. The headphones are still plugged in.

So I've had the experience before where you "wake up" inside of a dream, and it gets confusing because you feel more like you are actually awake -- I was thinking about this yesterday evening, and now my mind has conspired against me. How many times did I actually wake up in the middle of the night, and how many of the n-times of waking up were actually just dreams of me waking up? Yarg!

So I went to see a submarine today, thinking it would be a German WWII submarine. Instead it turned out to be a Russian WWII submarine complete with Russian labels all over all of the equipment. Exciting! My Russian classes weren't for nothing! It was pretty neat, since the submarine's electrical power was actually being generated by the original (or what looked like the original) diesel generators that were installed, giving the entire submarine this lively rumble. The sub was also filled with exciting phrases like, "Открыть клапан подачи фреона" -- "To open the valve of the freon supply" (okay, maybe that's not so exciting). Although yes, apparently клапан means lid, flap or valve, and not just the top thingy on the backpack (Julia says it's called "the brain"). From now on I intend to use the word "flap," for that top thingy. Other than that, it was cool and I have photos.

So the Side Design Hotel is this crazy hotel designed by some sort of "famous" interior designer and some other hotel designer guy. Essentially what this means is that everything looks sort of cool and modern, but is filled with "Norman doors". In this specific case, a door handle that's completely round like the kind people usually have in doors inside of their homes (where the inside and outside handles are the same), but this one doesn't turn. Further more, you have to push it to get in. It took me almost two minutes of putting my magnetic card entry key into the thing next to the door and trying to turn the handle and such before I figured out how I was actually supposed to get into my hotel room. Enough said.

The best reason I can think of for them naming the hotel the "Side Design Hotel" is that everything has sharp edges (so you'd better watching out for those sides!) -- well, everything except for the things that are perfectly cylindrical. Oh yeah, and the TV and telephone, which was clearly not designed by any interior designer, since they are both butt-ugly.

The restaurant here is outstandingly tasty -- it's some sort of Euro-asian fusion restaurant with all sorts of things like "Oxtail soup, " and fruit sushi that's made with a thing slice of mango (instead of seaweed), semi-sweet rice, and red bean in the center. It's all very yummy.

Without further ado, the photos introducing you to tasty foods and the Russian submarine. It also gets SIDE-tracked showing you the hotel room.

The Daily Show on iTunes and saving money over cable

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:20:01 GMT

So this past week The Daily Show has had an amazing update schedule. Usually TV shows on iTunes are supposed to show up the day after they air on broadcast TV, but unfortunately this isn't always true. In the past The Daily Show has been updated anywhere from the promised time to several days behind schedule. The TV show Stargate (both of them) had a period of three weeks once where the TV show had not been updated, which was extremely disappointing. However it appears that Apple has taken steps to make that not the case with Stargate anyway. This week though, The Daily Show has been updated the same day that the episode airs -- the e-mail notifications I get show sometime between 10 and 10:30 PM, which happens to be about 30 minutes before the show airs in California, and two hours (I think) after the show has aired on the east coast. This is pretty great, since obviously people subscribing to the TV show on iTunes aren't going to be watching it on broadcast TV anyway. I imagine that since the network both produces and sells the show on iTunes there aren't any issues with taking away anyone else's revenue stream. The interesting thing is that by doing this, they can effectively compete with sources like youTube and bittorrent feeds, neither of which make Comedy Central any money at all. The iTunes shows are 640x480 now, which is the quality I would expect (the previously low res quality was annoyingly insufficient), and being able to watch with the commercials stripped out is nice as well -- an improvement over what I had done before using a DVR (which is obviously bad for Comedy Central). But I imagine now Comedy Central is making more money off of me than they did for my one person watch a commercial ($9.99/16 episodes = about 62 cents an episode).

The nice thing is that I'm actually saving money over cable TV charges. This is because even though I am paying quite a lot per episode, I don't pay any money at all when these channels air reruns and such. I imagine if you watch a whole lot of TV, then cable might be cheaper, but my combination of the two Stargates ($37.99 each), Battlestar Galactica ($38.99) and The Daily Show(119.88/year assuming Jon Stewart broadcasts for 48 weeks) only cost me $234.85/year... this works out to $19.57/month (cable is $30 or so).

The only thing Comedy Central really loses out on is my occasionally watching The Colbert Report afterwards. Now I only watch it if for some reason it sounds like it might be interesting or I hear that there was some interesting segment on -- whereas before it would just get automatically recorded and then I might watch it if I was bored. Comedy Central is still making more money off of me, although I imagine I would probably pay for something like a combined Daily Show/Colbert Report for a discounted price (say, $1.25 or $1.50 for the two), even if I didn't watch The Colbert Report all of the time.

Bitte? Signal Kommt!

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 12:05:53 GMT

For those not in the know, I just got back from Hamburg, Germany -- where I did lots of fun things on the weekends when not at work: I walked all around Hamburg, ate at tasty restaurants, and visited Berlin, all while managing to avoid the giant 50 meter bug eating Germans.

The Hamburg History Museum was quite interesting with lots of cool historical things that had been dug up around the city. They had some neat things like ancient hair combs and medieval swords (a lot more primitive looking than you would expect from watching movies, even the one they had that was made of damascus steel). I also visited the Arts and Crafts Museum, which was neat and had a lot of old keyboards/pianos (including the evolution of the modern piano system along with examples of the hammer action from each evolutionary point), Mediterranean (Egyptian, Greek, etc.) figurines and vase (including a fair number of red and black figure vases).

Hamburg has a large number of fairly nice parks, one of which had some sort of event for children when I was there ("Kinder Kinder"), they are apparently one of the world's largest choices for conventions (I was told by a German colleague that travel guides always try to make a specific destination important by saying that something is or has the "world's..." [insert adjective] [insert noun]), although this fact affected me personally, since it prevented me from staying in one hotel during the entire two week trip. Overall it's a very nice city.

Gas is pretty expensive there ($5.66/gallon -- apparently google can do currency conversions as well?!), most of their gas stations don't take credit cards, although some have automatic bill readers. Surprisingly enough, it appears that their gas stations don't have vapor recovery devices to reduce smog, either.

I also went to Berlin for a day (it was a fairly expensive train ride, but it only took 1.5 hours to get there, compared to four or so by car). This was on the ICE -- the Inter-City Express, which travelled very fast. I walked all around Berlin (and my feet hurt pretty badly by the end of the day, as Berlin turned out to be fairly large). I was able to buy some new Ushankas from a street vendor while visiting Checkpoint Charlie. A day was enough to visit all of the outdoor tourist destinations, but none of the museums.

Anyway, enough for now, pictures to follow in the future...

NAMM

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:15:32 GMT

I got back Monday from a fun-filled week at NAMM, where I looked at much music equipment and listened to lots of demos.

You can jump straight to the photos, or read about my trip below.

Particularly funny was one booth that had in large capital letters, "MADE IN CHINA BUT MADE BY KOREAN PEOPLE" (see the photo). I also tried out some apps like Guitar Rig 2 (which was pretty neat), and looked at the really cool G7th performance capo.

MAudio/Digidesign had some great artists performing in their small club-like room. Kelly Clarkson sang – although I didn't hear her, as I waited in line for the Goo Goo Dolls who were playing next. A one hour line wait got me into the private concert with ~100 other people.

During lunch one day several other new artists performed in front of the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. One of these artists was Kaci Brown, who was surprisingly good – not only can she sing, play guitar and piano, but she also writes her own material... at the age of 17! [iTMS] Not really my favorite genre, though. I had actually been there to hear The Veronicas, who I had recently heard about (and purchased their album). They played a little later, as apparently the performance schedule was a little behind. It was well worth the wait though, as they sang extremely well. The fact that they're twins gives them a unique sound when singing together [iTMS].

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear Jean Baudin play his 11 string bass, due to some sort of disorganized play schedule at the AccuGroove booth (they make large speakers)... maybe next year.

I also got to demo some very expensive flutes ($5000 - $10,000). Unfortunately gold does sound better than solid silver, although according to various internet web sites, the better sounds are more apparently to the player (not sure if this is due to the player being more trained in hearing flute sounds, or because the additional harmonic frequencies are fairly weak and/or going in the wrong direction or something). Probably the best flute I played had a handmade 5K gold body with silver keys and an NRS-1 head joint. I didn't try anything more expensive from them though, which was probably a good idea. I also tried some flutes by Powell (which were more expensive and IMHO didn't play nearly as well as the Sankyo) and some by Muramatsu (which didn't have any headjoints available that were easy for me to play on). In fact, one Muramatsu flute had some sort of strange horizontal line running along the far edge. Anyway, because of my playing style, I couldn't get out anything lower than an F in the first or second register (which was a weird feeling). Something particularly funny that happened is when I visited the Gemeinhardt booth (they also make Sankyo), there were some Japanese people there who were looking for Sankyo flutes. The flutes were in fact located in a different viewing area in a suite at the Mariott Hotel, but the funny thing is that after much discussion about where they could find Sankyo flutes, they thanked the woman at the booth with a very fitting, "sank-yo-u very much."

Anyway, I suppose I should have posted while I was there. Next year, maybe. The photos I have were conveniently put together with the help of iPhoto + iWeb, so if you haven't seen them in action yet, see the photos!

SeaQuest DSV + Serenity

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 02:15:51 GMT

So at the end of December, the SciFi channel played a SeaQuest DSV marathon, which I conveniently recorded with my EyeTV. I was watching several episodes yesterday, and I noticed on thing in particular in an episode titled "Sympathy For the Deep." In this episode, people on a peace colony go insane. Now this isn't really anything out of the ordinary for a scifi tv show, but the interesting thing is that the peace colony is called Miranda. Now if you'll recall, this happens to also be the name of the planet in Serenity in which the reavers were created. In fact both SeaQuest and Serenity both have some sort of external method of trying to make the population peaceful, a method which ends up causing people to go nuts. Coincidence? Or is Joss Whedon somehow tied to SeaQuest DSV?

My new ride

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 02:37:50 GMT

Some photos of my new ride...

Unfortunately a cloudy day:

And some photos of my old ride for good measure (what good polish and wax can do for an old car):

Tuesday's Propositions (and additional thoughts)

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:00:03 GMT

So here's what I'm voting on Tuesday's propositions. They're holding an election, and the money has been spent already, so I might as well vote -- not that I like the fact that we're wasting all of this extra money voting on issues that could be deferred to future ballots without undue harm:

Prop 73 - waiting period for parental notification: No.
This probably creates more problems than it solves. Reasonable teenagers will talk to their parents anyway. Teenagers afraid of parental repercussions shouldn't be forced through some legal process to get an abortion. And unreasonable teenagers shouldn't be having kids. You might want be interested in reading Freakonomics.

Prop 74 - waiting period for permanent status: No.
Apparently even after a teacher has tenure, this doesn't mean that can't get fired for doing a bad job. According to the voter guide, the initial waiting period is just a time when they can get laid off without any specific reasons. It seems this proposition sidesteps the real issue, which is public school funding and low teacher salaries. While it's true that you can't currently get rid of a teacher who is teaching a subject in a curriculum that the school may no longer want to continue, this proposition doesn't address anything except for trying to get higher quality teachers into schools. Given the fact that teachers can be laid off for poor performance currently, this proposition ignores the real problem -- not enough money to the schools.

Prop 75 - public employee union due restrictions: No.
Businesses don't have the same restrictions (shareholders and/or employees don't have any say in political contributions to their respective business). Apparently most unions allow their members to specify that their dues not be used politically -- this proposition makes it so that members have to choose to make their dues available for politics every year. Plus this proposition isn't being funded by union members fed up with their union -- California law says that no public employees (the employees to which this proposition is being targeted) are required to join the union. What gives?

Prop 76 - State spending and school funding limits: No.
According to the proposition's text in the voter guide, this "permits governor, under specified circumstances, to reduce budget appropriations of Governor's choosing." Too much power in the hands of one person (who is partisan in one way or another) is probably bad. The roads do really suck right now, and presumably this proposition would fix that, but I think that better schools are probably more important than shiny new roads. Even if shiny new roads makes me happier in the short term...

Prop 77 - Redistricting: No.
This one deserves the proverbial Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot. Voters are supposed to vote on this? This just seems totally oddball for a proposition. I'm voting no -- things seem to be fine the way they are.

Prop 78/79 - Discounts on Prescription Drugs/Prescription Drug Discounts (did that confuse you?): No on 78, Yes on 79. You'll have to actually read about these, as the intrigue is quite riveting. 78 is supported by drug companies trying to defend themselves against proposition 79. Proposition 79 essentially strong arms drug companies into providing drugs at deep discounts to low income people. I really have no problem with drug companies making large amounts of money on drugs -- presumably the more they make, then more money they can invest in developing new and better drugs (the whole making money/FDA/Vioxx thing is not a factor in my decision on this proposition -- this is a separate problem). Proposition 79 "prohibits medi-cal contracts with customers not providing medicaid best price." I see no reason why the state of California shouldn't have the additional power to negotiate better contracts. Although I'm fairly certain that voting yes on prop 79 will probably raise my insurance costs as drug companies try to make up for lost revenue. I would consider voting no on prop 79, but the large amount of money ($50 million or some figure like that) given by the drug companies to fund prop 78 bothers me. Drug companies--.

Prop 80 - Electric service providers regulation: Yes.
A competitive market presumably means lower prices. Unfortunately, when the product is exactly the same (or when the product is competing on exactly the same things -- see the airline industry), companies are forced to compete strictly on pricing. Of course for an electric company, you can make your product cheaper by not building more power plants. And with no new power plants and increasing demand, the price of the product goes up, and you make more money. Then with this more money you build more power plants, and all is supposedly well and good. Unfortunately this sort of system provides no incentive for uninterrupted power. Why spend more money building power plants now, and having to raise rates (in which case the consumer will switch to another cheaper provider) if the rest of your competitors are instead keeping low rates? This means power plants might not get built until after they are needed. Given the long construction time on power plants, regulation of this market seems necessary in order to allow power companies to both grow and build plants at a steady rate, and to provide for power reliability. As I mentioned earlier, the airline industry is facing a similar problem after deregulation. Sure, flights are a lot cheaper now (tickets perhaps half the price compared to before), but service has gone down (no more real, hot meals on continental US flights), and many more flights get cancelled due to insufficient booking. Everything in our life depends on electricity -- so while it's debatable whether deregulating the airline industry is good or bad (some would say that the market has chosen), I would choose stability for electricity over price.

All in all, because I don't like the fact that this extra election is being held, what the governor supports and doesn't support played a small factor in my initial approach towards these propositions. I'm beginning to think more and more that really a lot of these issues should probably not be handled by the voters themselves (specialists exist for a reason -- obviously people with more domain knowledge can make better decisions about a respective subject than a mass of uninformed voters). While yes, there seem to be a lot of corrupt politicians, there are also ones that aren't corrupt. And the fact is, all of these politicians spent their entire day thinking about these different bills that get written. The public should make more of a concerted effort to get rid of corruption, and then let the (resultant uncorrupted) legislature do its job.

Music Licensing and China

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 21:48:57 GMT

So Chinese music is now available on the iTunes music store as of this past week. I write about this not as some sort of blatant advertisement for Apple, but rather the fact that music from another nationality is available for purchase in the US store. For those of you that don't know, music licensing is a very complex issue – there are different recording company divisions on different parts of the world, and for the most part music released in another country cannot be sold directly here in the US (or in any other country for that matter) unless it is sold by the US version of that recording company. What this means is that if the market for certain music (e.g., Russian Rock) is too small in the United States, it's just not available unless it's an imported CD. This is the primary reason that a lot of music from other country is not available on the iTunes music store (so you can't get your German techno, even if it's being sold in the German iTunes music store).

What makes this interesting is the fact that it appears as if China's music licensing works somewhat differently. Perhaps its communist state central bureaucracy has some advantage – they are able to uniquely tap into foreign markets without going through all of the normal channels (such as having Sony China music relicensed through US operations). This is obviously advantageous for Chinese music artists, as it represents a larger audience for their music, an audience that normal US record companies wouldn't take their chances on due to the small number of people interested in this music. Hopefully this is only a first step in what will be many in being able to unify the world music market. I sure would like to be able to purchase Russian music through the iTunes music store. This probably won't happen ever in the near future though, due to Russian music licensing issues/mass piracy in Russian (the people there do earn very small wages)/sites like allofmp3.com.

Trade Shows / 2006

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 09:15:58 GMT

Two journals is hard, because sometimes I'm not sure which one to post in. I should resolve this dilemma at some point...

So it looks like I'll be attending three trade shows in 2006. NAMM (National Association of Music Makers), Jan 19-22. This should be very exciting, as the general public is not admitted, and they usually have quite the array of famous musicians. WWDC (Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference), Jun 11-16. I'm just assuming I'll be going to most of this show, as it's great fun and not too far away from where I work/live. SIGGRAPH (ACM's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics Conference), July 30 - Aug 3. Siggraph always has shiny stuff, and it's come to my attention that computer graphics is far more exciting than I originally anticipated.

I'd like to attend OOPSLA sometime, given the fact that there are some really good speakers there. Unfortunately I missed the Ralph Johnson year (he's apparently organizing OOPSLA this year), which would have made things more exciting – he's a pretty exciting lecturer; I took a class from him at UIUC. Although at that point, he had actually stopped giving a lot of the real lectures, and just played a video of him giving the lecture from some number of years past. That was a little annoying...

If anyone I know is attending any of these conferences, drop me line at robertchin at mac dot com, and we can meet up!

Thomas & Friends

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 07:45:58 GMT

So it has recently come to my attention that there's a very special engine in the Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains line (the line of toy trains that Julia's little brother likes so much). Yes, boys and girls, you can now get your own Thomas & Friends Battery Powered Lady Engine. Wow that sounds dirty.

Work + Play

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 16:47:49 GMT

It's been a long time since my pithy voice has scratched anything into the walls of live journal. This is mostly due to the fact that I now work on user interface design related items for Logic and GarageBand at Apple. I also got married and am now living with Julia in married student housing at Stanford (so feel free to come by and visit!). We moved into our apartment a couple of weeks ago, and have thusly been occupied with unpacking. Oh yes, and then there's cable tv which I now have for the first time in my life, along with an EyeTV that I purchased for recording it -- so as Chris Cameron would say, "productivity--". Speaking of time, I'd better head off to work, now that I've satiated all of my readers (if there still are any). Perhaps another update will follow shortly.

Images of a different kine

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 22:21:28 GMT

For those of you either classifying yourself as from the island of Crete (read about the excavation at Knossos) or as a heathen, Chris Cameron presents to you the following image for your idolic worship:

Bigger Image
This is another product of Chris's ray tracer. For full effect, please listen to "I am Cow" by the Arrogant Worms while viewing this piece of art.

Jasmine

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 06:19:32 GMT

Jasmine incense is surprisingly good smelling, and jasmine scented tea is surprisingly good tasting.

http://osiris.laya.com/blog/

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 22:28:31 GMT

It's been a long time since I've posted anything on LiveJournal, mostly because I have a lot of technical things to say, and I've been afraid of scaring away any and all readership by going in to anything too technical. So I've created an alternative blog with more technical (and hopefully more frequent) entries. You can visit it at http://osiris.laya.com/blog/, and hopefully at some point someone with a paid LJ account will syndicate the feed for LJ so that you can read it through the friends list.

For all of you art types (and non art types)

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:39:00 GMT

My roommate, Chris Cameron, has made an cultural statement with his latest artistic endeavor. Please post your interpretations, comments, criticisms or anything else you have to say!

"One Drink"
Chris Cameron

TWM

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 05:38:15 GMT

"I used...TWM as a window manager, the most crappy of crappy window managers. If things were going to be bad, then why not go to the bottom.

From http://www.linuks.mine.nu/gnustep/sun/.

"Pop Science" is often wrong

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 03:48:20 GMT

I often wonder how so much misinformation can be passed around (Some examples: There are over a hundred inuit words for snow -- the truth is, there are less than a dozen. English became the national language in the United States over german by only one vote -- the truth is, there is no national language in the United States. The list continues.) That's why after reading the short paragraph that follows, I was skeptical of its results, having taken several courses on cognitive psychology and linguistics. I did some research on the internet and came up with the link that appears at the bottom of this post. I also came up with my own counter example, which is the second paragraph that appears below.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch by the Lngiusiitc Dptanmeret at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

But tihs sudesppoly postrugeiis drentmapet apareps ircorcent. If tehy had ctreaed a denefrift eplamxe, praphes tehy wunld'ot be dinwarg teshe dvicpetee cosinuncols so qclukiy. Tehy aslo clitenonenvy redeeorrd tiehr leetrts to be eeasir to dipecher, mkiang an eelgenicdxy wrslehots slpame wrose. The Lusingitic Drapementt at Cigarmdbe Useitvinry nedes steamrr rrccheeserahs.

Here's the original mixed up text I had here, before it was improved by the first comment:
But tihs sspduepoly pteosruigis drampeentt aaerpps icceonrrt. If tehy had ceeatrd a dneerifft emplaxe, ppaerhs tehy wlund'ot be dinwarg teshe dviteepce coouinnclss so qlkiucy. Tehy aslo clitoeennnvy rrroeeedd tiehr lrttees to be eeiasr to dpceehir, mniakg an eeeilcndgxy wrslehots slpame wrose. The Ltiiusingc Daeemnrptt at Cigmradbe Usiintevry nedes steamrr rrrcchheeeass.

Here's the actual unscrambled text:
But this supposedly prestigious department appears incorrect. If they had created a different example, perhaps they wouldn't be drawing false conclusions so quickly. They also conveniently reordered their letters to be easier to decipher, making an exceedingly worthless sample worse. The Linguistic Department at Cambridge University needs smarter researchers.

As you can see, there is some difficulty reading it -- a far cry from "reading it without problem"! There are event some words that are indecipherable without much thought. If this example really is from Cambridge University, well then, there goes the neighborhood.

Learn More

The ironies of voting on gay marriage

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 04:55:19 GMT

After reading two articles on slate, one about gay marriage and the issue of morality and another about morality being the new "race", I realized that the whole voting on gay marriage has been very much mis- portrayed. What I mean by this is that while the religious fundamentalists would like to have you believe that when voting on gay marriage, you're voting on whether or not you approve of gay marriage, that's not really the case. The vote on gay marriage is more is more about whether people have the right to do and live their own lives the way they want to -- because supporting gay marriage does not mean that you approve or disapprove of gay marriage, but that you approve of people having the rights to live freely. This seems rather ironic, in that the traditional republican values include decreasing the size of the government, of decreasing government programs and influence. Yet this one disguised issue, one which is very much supposed by the republican party, goes completely against this view. So while on one hand George W. Bush may be campaigning for lowering taxes and allowing people more freedom to choose where their social security money goes, on the other hand, he's advocating for the government controlling more things that have to do with people's personal lives -- being against abortion, for the death penalty, etc.

I find this all kind of strange, since my original view was that republican party seemed to be very strong in terms of presenting a unified push goal. However it seems that even the republican party, just like the democrats, fail to be driven by a central ideal, a key belief that from which all view points are derived.

Why are there never any candidates that are both exceedingly smart and honorable? To me, it's better to have the smartest person possible running the country, but those smart people never make it past the primaries. Do most people simply not like those who are smarter than them?

Genetically Engineered Cats

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 01:20:47 GMT

Apparently soon you will be able to get genetically engineered hypo-allergenic cats. My favorite quote from the page:

Cats purr at the same frequency as an idling diesel engine, about 26 cycles per second.

That's right, who needs cats when we've got diesel engines?

I've also heard people say that we can learn things from cats.

Neutering a male cat will, in almost all cases, stop him from spraying (territorial marking), fighting with other males (at least over females), as well as lengthen his life and improve its quality.

Shit.

Creativity

Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:39:41 GMT

In response to Ralph Johnson's blog post, a poll.

View Poll: #368135

QOTD

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:18:51 GMT

The great secret in life ... [is] not to open your letters for a fortnight.
At the expiration of that period you will find that nearly all of them have answered themselves.
-- Arthur Binstead

Several Events

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:59:47 GMT

Chris and I finished off a party size Papa Del's pizza yesterday. This mass input of pizza has been feeding me for the past 24 hours. I think it could keep me fed well through tomorrow, however I'm not sure if I can keep myself from eating something. Not because I'm hungry though -- but because I like to eat!

A great tragedy against humanity has occured -- William Shatner has released his first album. OMGWTF.

It's time for another experiment in the kitchen -- turnip (daikon radish) cakes, ti pang (pork shoulder roast) and maybe a custard pie. ¡Excitomundo!

Chicago Surveillance Network

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:32:37 GMT

"When the laws kept men from openly doing acts of violence, it seems to me that they did them in secret. And a man--someone shrewd and wise--first had the thought to invent fear of the gods for mortals, so that there would be something fearsome to evil people, should they do or say or think anything in secret.

"Therefore, he introduced the divine as a daemon [in the benign, non-"demonic" sense of the word, sort of like a UNIX daemon], blooming with undying life, looking with its mind, thinking quite a lot, paying close attention to these things, and having a divine nature, one who will hear and see all that is said among mortals and will be able to see all that is done.

"If you plan some evil silently, you will not escape the gods' notice in these things, for there is much understanding in them... He set the gods in the heavens above... He placed such fears all around people, and... he well established the daemons in a conspicuous place and stamped out lawlessness with laws." -- Critias, Fragment B25. (Note that some attribute this fragment to Euripides.)

Read more from the NY Times, quote taken from an Ars Technica post. Or, read about why there cameras should be available for everyone to see, in an article by David Brin.

Television Viewing Habits

Sun, 19 Sep 2004 04:22:24 GMT

So apparently having more education makes your life more exciting, as does watching less television. The average american watches about four hours of television a day! Chris and I also found this interesting graph:

What we were really looking for was a graph of TV viewing habits by state or region in the US. If anyone knows where this information can be had, please leave me a comment!