Infinite Granularity

New site

2007-01-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

I started another blog.

The empty seat

2006-09-08T00:15:00.000-04:00

I find an empty seat in a public place and ask the person in the adjacent one, "Is this seat taken?" She smiles and nods, motioning towards the empty seat. I sit down, because it's obvious that what she actually thought I said was, "Can I sit here?"

Ancestry

2006-09-04T00:03:00.000-04:00

I know so much about my mom's side of the family and almost nothing about my dad's side. The relatives on my mother's side are all pretty close, while my father's side consists of a bunch of misanthropes. They're scattered all over the world and rarely talk to each other, if ever. Any such talks usually end with harsh words and more years of silence.

My dad almost never talks about his relatives, and it's only from an old photo that I found out that his father had a total of TEN brothers and and sisters. I, of course, have never met most of them. Three of the siblings died in the prime of their youth in 1941, during Hitler's initial assault. Perhaps it had happened at Babiy Yar, located within walking distance from our home in Kiev. It's strange thinking about it - the war, to me, was always something that had happened to other people.

Another one of my grandfather's sisters died from cancer in the 60's. A brother and a sister are still alive and living in NYC, but they barely talk to each other. If you're going to live in the same city and not talk to a sibling, New York is a good place. Another sister lives in Israel. These three are the only ones I've met.

Labor strikes

2006-09-01T20:47:00.000-04:00

On the way to my internship, I passed a labor strike that took place several times a week. Here are some pics of it that I took a few months ago:

If you can't read the sign, it says:

STARKEY
CONSTRUCTION
COMPANY, INC.
Does Not Pay
Area Standard
Wages & Benefits

Mid-Atlantic
Regional Council
of Carpenters

Personal helicopter

2006-08-31T16:46:00.000-04:00

(Link)

I want one.

Celestial trivia

2006-08-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

As I was lying on the grass with my nephew last weekend, looking up to try to spot some Perseid meteors, he asked what was the difference between a meteor, a meteorite, a meteoroid and an asteroid. Explaining meteor and meteorite was easy, but I realized that I really didn't know the difference between a meteorite and an asteroid (except for maybe their size?). And "meteoroid" sounded like some parody that middle schoolers made up. Little did I know:

A meteoroid is a relatively small (sand- to boulder-sized) fragment of debris in the Solar System. When entering a planet's atmosphere, the meteoroid heats up and partially or completely vaporizes. The gas along the path of the meteoroid becomes ionized and glows. The trail of glowing vapor is called a meteor, or a shooting star. If any portion of the meteoroid survives to reach the ground, it is then referred to as a meteorite.

(Link)

Huh. So what I thought was a meteor, was actually a meteoroid, and a meteor was merely the glowing vapor trail following the meteor. As for asteroids, their main defining characteristic is that they orbit their star, but they don't have atmospheres, so they're not planets.

As for those Perseids, we were only there for maybe 20 minutes; I just don't have the patience for that sort of thing. I didn't see any meteors, but my nephew says he saw one.

A harsh mistress

2006-08-16T14:31:00.000-04:00

All it took was someone on IRC pasting a couple lines from a stock CircleMUD game to rekindle my addiction. For the uninitiated, a mud is like a text-based World of Warcraft, having all the advantages over WoW that books have over movies. The CircleMUD derivatives tend to be combat-oriented (MOOs for example, are role-play oriented). I used to play one such derivative for many years, but unfortunately, you'd be hardpressed to find even one player logged in there now.

The guy from IRC was starting up his own mud, it turns out, and I started fantasizing about building zones there for others to explore. After that day, I hadn't heard from him in a while, so I wasn't sure what was going on and if we were still doing it. The damage, however, had been done. I wanted to mud, so I went to the good old Mud Connector. After many attempts, I finally found one that seemed to resemble my old mud somewhat, and most importantly, it had a ton of players. A few days later, I have a level 20 Warrior on Medievia.

From the website:

These following statements are true. We dare anyone to prove them wrong.
Medievia is the largest game in the world when it comes to features.
Medievia is the biggest game in the world when it comes to original areas to explore.
Medievia is the most detailed game ever made in all of human history.

Note how it compares itself not to just other muds, but ALL games. I can't confirm any of this, of course, having explored only an infinitisimal percentage of their world. I refuse to read about zones I haven't been to unless I'm about to go there.

Medievia has only the four original classes - Warrior, Thief, Mage, and Cleric. It has no races. Yet it's been online since 1991. I like a game that can appreciate simplicity. As you progress, you get to play all four classes, keeping skills from classes you've already played. When you finish all four, you become a Hero, at which point Great Things happen.

The game definitely has many kinks ironed out that I didn't like in other muds. Yet, I have two complaints with it so far. In every room on the mud, in addition to the text description, there is an ascii map of the immediate vicinity with a "you are here" marker. This is a new feature to me, and it definitely makes it easier to navigate areas you've been to at least once. The problem is for places I haven't been in yet. I find myself looking more at these maps than reading the description, and as such, all the places start looking the same. The maps themselves are beautifully done, even going as far as using a custom font, which makes the descriptions that much more superficial. Maybe the text will start playing a bigger part in the harder zones, we'll see.

My other complaint is the segmentation of the mud. You can explore the whole game looking for zones by foot (or on a horse), but you don't need to. All you need to do, is call up the zonelist from the help files, pick a zone that looks interesting, and call up a dragon to fly to it. As far as you're concerned, these zones are just disconnected bubbles floating in space somewhere. It really breaks the continuity of playing in a virtual world that tries to be real.

Other than those two things, I like the game so far. Maybe I'll see you there.

Cosmogony

2006-08-09T12:41:00.000-04:00

I've been on a somewhat of a metaphysical tear lately, ever since reading Spaceland. Todays' topic is cosmogony, that is, the origin of the world. I use the word "world" to mean everything that exists, as opposed to just our universe. As I see it, there are only two possibilities:

The world has always existed in some form
The world came from nothing

If there is a third alternative, I'd love to hear it. As it stands, both of these options are counter-intuitive. One of them is logically impossible, leaving the other as the only choice.

It is logically impossible for something to come from nothing since that transition would require "something", and therefore what existed before that transition was not "nothing", resulting in a contradiction. In other words, for a change to occur, "something" must have caused it to occur and therefore "something" was present before the change.

So, the world must have always existed, which is what the ancient Greeks believed. How do we reconcile this in our pathetic minds inside our very non-eternal bodies? We can't. And the worst part is that we'll never be able to.

Men

2006-08-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

So I'm watching this commercial of a bunch of guys standing around a newly bought trampoline. One of them decides to test it out by jumping on it. I'm thinking "that looks like fun". All of a sudden, a man-sized beer can squashes the guy on the trampoline. Ugh, not another one of those.

Milwaukee's Best Light beer is doing a series of commercials showing men doing "unmanly" things and punishing them by dropping beer cans on them: "Men should act like men, and light beer should taste like beer". Other causes for getting squashed include getting up from a poker table to call the wife, and buying non-alcoholic beverages in addition to alcohol.

Something tells me these commercials wouldn't work that well in Europe.

Take that, 100 years war

2006-08-06T00:07:00.000-04:00

The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War (1651-1986) was a war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly (located off the southwest coast of the United Kingdom). It lasted 335 years without a single shot being fired which would make it the longest war and with the fewest casualties. Despite uncertain validity of the declaration of war, peace was declared in 1986.

In 1985, Roy Duncan, historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council, wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London to dispose of the "myth" that the islands were still at war. Embassy staff found the myth to be accurate and Duncan invited ambassador jonkheer (squire) Rein Huydecoper to visit the islands and sign a peace treaty. Peace was declared on April 17, 1986, 335 years after the war began.

(Link)

Here's some more war-related strangeness.

Book reviews

2006-08-04T20:16:00.000-04:00

Some stuff I've read recently.

Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I wanted to read this because Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Singularity Institute mentioned it as one of the books that changed his life. Therefore, I was expecting it to focus on transhumans, but there was much more than that. All sorts of contrasts are visible throughout the book, of both races and worldviews. I enjoyed it for the most part, but in the last third or so it started to drag a bit. Additionally, there are some things which I didn't understand, like why Powers must necessarily have such short lifespans.

This is exactly the type of book I would've avoided when I was younger because I didn't want my geekiness to show or something - fat paperback with a spaceship on the cover. I'm glad I read it now, though.

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich

With a subtitle like that, I had to read it, despite never having gambled in a casino in my life. Fast paced and informative. Recommended.

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Back to sci-fi, and a classic at that. I remember hearing about Larry Niven for a while and his reputation for being one of the elites of "hard" sci-fi. There are many things I love about this book, but the greatest is the pure grandeur that is the Ringworld itself - a scale of such magnitude just blows you away.

There is one thing that nagged at me throughout the book that I won't mention specifically, but it should become obvious what it is to any scientifically minded reader. For something so akin to magic to be present in science fiction is pretty annoying. It also happens to work as the ultimate plot device, explaining all of the events in the book.

Still, a good book and should be read by any sci-fi fan. A note of trivia - when I was playing Magic: the Gathering years ago (I actually played as recently as last year, but I digress), I found out that Nevinyrral of Nevinyrral's Disk is Larry Niven spelled backwards, and forgot about it until my friend reminded me about it yesterday.

Spaceland by Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker is the author of The Fourth Dimension, one of the best and most accessable non-fiction books on the subject. Spaceland is the extension of Flatland, for the third and fourth dimensions. Unfortunately it's not nearly as good, devoting more time to plot and characters instead of the important stuff - the dimensions. This would be allright if Rucker actually took the plot seriously, but he seems to understand that the plot is unimportant and treats it like a joke, but inexplicably spends too much time on it.

This made me think back to an actual good fiction book about the fourth dimension, The Boy Who Reversed Himself by William Sleator. Yes, it's a book for "young adults", but it simply blew my mind at the time. Here the plot is taken completely seriously, but Sleator manages to explain the complexities of higher dimensions along the way.

While on the subject of books, does anyone know of a good reference on books, similiar to how IMDb is for movies? Amazon.com is probably the best option at the moment, but its organization kinda sucks. IBList.com seems to have a lot of potential, but it's currently mostly limited to just fiction.

Universe expansion

2006-08-03T22:04:00.000-04:00

Most scientists today agree that the universe is expanding due to redshift. Similar to the Doppler effect, the wavelengths of visible light from stars get continuously longer (and thus, redder), signifying that the stars are moving away from us. This is true about all observed stars, so there is definitely some sort of expansion going on, as opposed to the Earth just moving away from some stars and towards others.

Following logical progression, the next question is "what does the universe expand into?" By definition, the universe is all of space, so how can it expand? Other related questions are "where is the center and the edges of the universe?" A commonly used analogy that's used to answer these questions is that of a balloon.

Imagine that our universe is two-dimensional and it exists on the surface of a flat rubber balloon. If the balloon expands, our universe would expand too, but it's expanding into the third dimension - a dimension higher than that of our universe. Even though it's expanding as far as the two-dimensional dwellers are concerned, the universe still has no center and no edges because it's unbounded just like the surface of any sphere. Here is a more detailed explanation.

So we can extend this analogy to our three-dimensional universe, right? Well, wait--

One might conclude that the expansion of our three-dimensional space requires the presence of a fourth dimension. But in Einstein's general theory of relativity, the foundation of modern cosmology, space is dynamic. It can expand, shrink and curve without being embedded in a higher-dimensional space.

Not particularly insightful. Let's try again, with a math slant - an argument that higher dimensions are unnecessary.

As for how you mathematically describe the surface of a balloon without any reference to a higher dimension, here it is:

ds^2 = a^2 ( dx^2 + sin(x)^2 dy^2 )

Here, ds is the distance between two infinitesimally distant points; integrate ds if you want to get the distance between points separated by a finite distance. a is a parameter (the “scale factor”, if you will) that has units of length. x and y are, respectively, latitde and longitude. (You can arbitrarily choose any point on the balloon you want to be the north pole.) (x is really 90 degrees minus latitude.)

Here, you only have two variables: x and y. There is no reference anywhere to any other dimension or variable in which this intrinsically curved geometric space is embedded. However, since x and y are really angles (that is, once you reach 360 degrees, you’re back at zero), this describes a finite space that has the same geometrical properties as the surface of a three-dimensional ball. In this case, though, you only need the two dimensions to describe it.

The author of the quote himself admits that despite needing only two dimensions to describe the surface of the balloon, it follows that the balloon itself is three-dimensional.

Other arguments against extending the balloon analogy are to the effect of "since we can't know what's outside our universe, does it really matter?". In Wittgenstein's words, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." To that I say - if it will help me sleep at night, I'll damn right speak of it.

So, let's posit for the moment that our universe really is expanding into the fourth dimension, whether it's a hypersphere or some other shape. Speculating on what this fourth dimensional space is like would be more useless than trying to figure out what our life would be after the Singularity. Nevertheless, I wonder if this space is also curved and expanding into a fifth dimension, which is also expanding into a sixth dimension, and so on. Indeed, this has been the subject of much science fiction.

Such a structure would also make possible for multiple universes of n dimensions inside a universe of n+1 dimensions, which gives the possibility of parallel universes some due. As for the existence of universes of less than 3 dimensions, assuming they do exist, there is no reason why they must be inside our universe or inside any three-dimensional universe for that matter; they could just be floating somewhere in 4D or 57D space for all we know, so don't expect to find Flatland anytime soon.

Back to the higher dimensions. If we're willing to consider our universe as expanding into the fourth dimension, there is no reason why this chain of expansion into higher dimensions should not filter upwards; otherwise the universes of higher dimensions would run into the same ontological problems as we have - "where is the boundary of our universe, etc". This assumes that these universes have also had some sort of Big Bang.

It also follows that the Big Bang equivalent of the universes of higher dimensions must have occured before ours, since their universes had to exist for ours to expand into. Therefore, the "first" universe that came into existence must have been the one with the highest dimensions. But what did that universe expand into? Looks like we've once again run into Aquinas' first cause argument.

The alternative is that there was no first universe, and for every universe there is a bigger one into which it's expanding. It sure does make me feel small to be living in a universe with only 3 dimensions, when I could be living in one that has an arbitrary high number of them. Think of the possibilities!

Speed limits

2006-07-16T19:51:00.000-04:00

I was driving through a wooded area today. One of those long and winding roads that are typical in a suburban sprawl. There was a speed limit sign for 35mph, but I felt in control enough to go over 50, like most other cars on that road. A few seconds after passing that sign, I saw another one that actually caused me to slow down.

This caused me ponder the inefficacy of speed limits from this new angle. What if Deer Crossing signs were used in place of normal speed limits? Obviously, there are no deer on city roads, so we'd have to come up with some alternatives. The question is, what? Maybe we can hire someone can dress up in deer suits, like so.

Punant

2006-07-16T00:07:00.000-04:00

[Images removed because hotlinking was disabled]

More ants and other awesome stuff here.

The communist joke

2006-07-14T14:05:00.000-04:00

Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. "I am
here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with
sabotage," says the first. "I am here because I kept getting to work five
minutes early, and they charged me with spying," says the second. "I am here
because I got to work on time every day," says the third, "and they charged me
with owning a western watch."
--
A man is queuing for food in Moscow. Finally he's had enough. He turns round to
his friend and says "That's it. I'm going to kill that Gorbachev," and marches
off. Two hours later he comes back. "Well," says the friend, "did you do it?"
"No," replies the other, "there was an even longer queue over there."

More here.

Worse than AIDS

2006-07-13T12:42:00.000-04:00

"Americans have a severe disease -- worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex," [Gorbachev] said. "You want an American style-democracy here. That will not work." (link)

Catching up

2006-07-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

Well, the world cup is over and headbutts are all the rage. I can't say I was particularly impressed by this year. No upsets and limited offense as a result of the dominant 4-5-1 setup. Germany was the most exciting team for me (who, incidentally, played a 4-4-2) and I was sad when they went out in a heartbreaker to the eventual champions. Speaking of which, my aging grandfather is a football fanatic and lives in Germany, so I was somewhat concerned about his reaction to such a sudden end to his team's chances to win the cup. I spoke to him a couple of days later and he was fine, fortunately. Here's hoping to a wild and exciting tournament in South Africa in 2010. Judging by past World Cups off European soil, it should be a good one.

--

Random Wiki browsing (link):

In the Ennead cosmogeny, [Atum] was considered to be the first god, having arisen by his own force himself, sitting on a mound (benben), from the primordial waters (Nu). Early myths state that Atum created the god Shu and goddess Tefnut from his semen by masturbation in the city of Annu (the Egyptian name for Heliopolis), a belief strongly associated with Atum's nature as an hermaphrodite (his name meaning completeness). Strictly, the myth states that Atum ejaculated his Semen into his mouth, impregnating himself, possibly indicating autofellatio, which has lead many to misinterpret (euphemistically) the myth as indicating creation from mucus.

--

I played roller hockey a few days ago for the first time in years. There were shackles made of rust on my ankles and my arms were useless as I could not keep up with the play for most of the game. Compounding the problem were my wheels (84A), which are great for outdoor hockey but lack the grip needed to play indoors. A player suggested I use RinkRat's wheel configuration of 76A in the front, 80A in the back and two 78A's in the middle. I ordered the wheels from HockeyMonkey, which cost me about $50 including shipping. We'll see if it makes a difference.

The new white is coming

2006-07-06T22:54:00.000-04:00

Sony PSP ad from the Netherlands. Check out that claw. People complain about racism.

Snoopage

2006-07-06T21:09:00.000-04:00

I was installing snoop software, which lets my boss spy on employees, on their machines today, when I noticed that it provided a key combination to bring up its window (it runs in stealth mode otherwise). As soon as I had a chance, I tried out the combo on my own machine. A prompt came up asking for the password and then the main screen of the program (which shall remain nameless) appeared.

At this point I wasn't really worried; rather, I was annoyed that they decided I needed to be monitored. I had no knowledge of the full capabilities of this program as I didn't have access to the monitoring (only my two bosses did), so I expected it to just be able to monitor running processes and installed programs.

What I saw in this program gave me a knot in my stomach. It had a keylogger, it logged my AIM conversations, and took screenshots at some interval. I've been using the machine to access my webmail, my university account, and Blogger among other things, and all of my passwords had been logged. The first thing that came to mind was "they can see that I found their program through the screen capture thing", so I quickly exited it (because of this, the feature list of the program is incomplete).

I was considering two options at that point - tell my immediate boss I wanted the snooper out of my machine and that I wouldn't work with it installed, or pretend that I don't know about it and avoid doing anything personal on the machine while I worked there (it's just for the summer, after all). The first choice was clearly better since I hadn't done anything against their rules (instant messaging was allowed; they even pre-installed AIM and MSN messenger), so I went to tell my boss about it.

He said that my machine didn't have this program, and was surprised when I showed him that it, in fact, did have it. The boss said it was an error, uninstalled it, and went back to work.

I spent the rest of the day pondering if I should take his word for it, and whether the snooper wasn't there intentionally. After all, the existance of this program is being kept secret from employees and if someone sees the program being installed (it has a generic windows installer look), my boss just tells them it's an anti-spyware prog. Furthermore, the program could be reinstalled with a different key combo so I wouldn't know about it. So I had reason to be concerned.

But after thinking it over some more, I've decided he was telling the truth. First of all, he wouldn't have me installing the program if he had planned on keeping its existence on my machine a secret. And second, the boss has entrusted me with most passwords of the system (the same can't be said about the third member of our tiny IT department who is getting fired tomorrow).

Despite my conclusion that the snooper being on my computer was a mistake, the thought of it being installed on the machines of others makes me feel guilty as hell (not only do I know about it, I actually did the installing and now I know what it does). I hear there is a law in California that requires employers to notify their employees of any keyloggers installed at their machines. That needs to spread to other states (and countries).

Tell it like it is

2006-07-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

NPR was interviewing some NASA scientist, whose name I didn't catch, after the shuttle Discovery had launched. He had been pushing for this launch despite protests from other scientists who were concerned with the foam. NPR asked him how he felt when he saw the launch go through successfully and whether he felt any vindication, and he replied (I'm paraphrasing):

"I didn't feel anything. Preparation tests showed that the shuttle was ready and there were no surprises during the launch. It's more of a vindication for the scientific method than anything. People put so much emphasis on feelings; I can worry about my feelings when I'm dead."

Movie review: 21 Grams (2003)

2006-07-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

This is what passes for drama these days. Very heavy-handed, 21 Grams made me wonder at times why I'm letting myself be saddened by such cheap tactics. It's hard not to cringe when you see a woman grieving for her recently diseased husband, but this is the equivalent of shock effects in a horror movie - it takes no effort and it too easily plays on our gut responses.

There have been comparisons made to Crash, with which I agree. Both movies are overbearing dramas and are non-linear; a technique used more and more lately to appeal to the intellectual audience. Unfortunately, it's not enough. If you take trash, cut it up into pieces and re-arrange them, you still end up with trash at the end. Memento and Mulholland Drive might've been good movies even if they were linear, 21 Grams and Crash would definitely not.

Speaking of Mulholland Drive, Naomi Watts is so hot. If you were wondering how I made it through the movie, there's your answer. Her acting is not too shabby, either.

I was surprised to find out that the director of 21 Grams, Iñárritu, also did Amores Perros, one of my favorite movies. Also non-linear, but much, much better.

Eurocup 2006

2006-07-01T21:26:00.000-04:00

Andriy Shevchenko was quoted as saying before the game vs Switzerland that they would win it but lose the next one in the quarterfinals, which is exactly what happened. After a very passive win against the Swiss, Ukraine showed some desperation against Italy. None of it paid off, however, as they hit a post and the crossbar with Buffon coming up huge in net for the Azzuri. Despite Ukraine's relatively easy path to the quarterfinals, getting there for a first-timer is still impressive. This run will be permanently entered into Ukrainian folklore.

What happened with France? Heading for a repeat of 2002, something strange happened. After barely making it of their group, they beat Spain, which I doubt anyone saw coming. That pales in comparison to beating Brazil, though, especially after such a slow start to the tournament.

--

Many flaws of the World Cup and of football in general have been exposed amidst the blown referee calls and always random shootouts. Pundits have proposed solutions, including Football kNuts about ways to fix the refereeing; I'd like to talk about the shootout.

In other sports like hockey, basketball and baseball, if the score is tied at the end of the game, you have an endless series of extra periods/quarters/innings until a goal is scored or the score isn't tied when the buzzer sounds, depending on the sport. This makes sure the game is decided in the same way it was played. The reason this can't be done in football is because the players get dead tired after regulation time, and the reason for this is that at least 8 of the 11 players play the full 90 minutes from start to finish. Even when pacing yourself when you're away from the play, all that running adds up.

The solution is obvious - permit more than the 3 currently allowed substitions. The reason there is a limit at all is because each substitution requires the attention of the referee and delays the play of game. If unlimited subs were allowed, coaches would just use them to waste time until the game ends. If you allow the subs to be done hockey-style, i.e. during gameplay and without the main referee's attention, you increase the risk of players cheating by being on the field when they shouldn't be.

So, the rules should be changed to either allow unlimited subs and put linesmen around the field to make sure players don't cheat by sneaking in, or just allow 2-3 more subs to be done the normal way, possibly only during extra time as Marcelo Balboa suggested.

God helmet

2006-06-22T00:02:00.000-04:00

Looks like we are getting closer to infinite bliss; behold the god helmet!

So, if you had access to this device, what part of your brain would you stimulate? If you happened to be familiar with reports from the early days of neurosurgery about the septum -- a cluster of cells located near the front of the thalamus in the middle of your brain -- you might be tempted to apply the magnet there. Patients "zapped" in this region claim to experience intense pleasure, "like a thousand orgasms rolled into one."

Richard Dawkins, my hero and idol, was one of the guinea pigs.

...could [Dr Persinger] get arch-sceptic and militant atheist Prof Richard Dawkins to start believing in God by electrically massaging his temporal lobes?

[...]

Unfortunately, during the experiment, while Prof Dawkins had some strange experiences and tinglings, none of them prompted him to take up any new faith. "It was a great disappointment," he said.

[...]

Dr Persinger has explained away the failure of this Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator. Before donning the helmet, Prof Dawkins had scored low on a psychological scale measuring proneness to temporal lobe sensitivity.

Despite this mishap, the helmet obviously has some potential. I wonder if there would be more support for this project if instead of calling it the God Helmet, they'd call it the Helmet of a Thousand Orgasms.

World Cup, cont.

2006-06-18T01:27:00.000-04:00

Thank god for Argentina - now Ukraine no longer holds the dishonor of suffering the worst loss in the World Cup so far, that belongs to Serbia & Montenegro. A 6-0 trouncing has many people thinking Brazil's little brother will go all the way. I'll wait until after Argentina's game vs the Netherlands before jumping on that bandwagon.

But, back to Ukraine. Spain came to play and got in a pair of quick goals before the hloptsi knew what hit them. Any resistance after that was pretty lackluster. The abomination that was the ref's call of penalty kick + red card in the second half was merely salt on the wound. The two remaining games that Ukraine has are against mediocre teams, so they still have a decent chance to advance. The fact that Shevchenko was healthy enough to play against Spain was also a good sign.

Moving on to the team with heaviest security in the tournament, aka the only team who plays soccer, aka the USA. I only saw the highlights of their game against the Czech Republic, but the word is that they couldn't get through the midfield. Well, Ghana was easily passing through it all day long against the Czechs, especially on their Brazil-esque counterattacks. It's all about speed, baby. By the way, what's the deal with one of the Ghana players waving an Israeli flag after the second goal? Check it out:

The USA vs. Italy game was a rollercoaster, and the draw they got out of it is not bad, all things considered. There were 3 red cards in this match; I don't think any other game had more than one. The referee for this one was apparently suspended in the 1998 World Cup for inconsistency, missed the 2002 tournament, and is now back to wreak havok in '06. I'll be surprised if he gets to do another game this year. The only card that was deserved was by Totti; once you start bloodying people's faces with your elbows, you're just asking for a suspension. The other cards were just horseshit.

The US team had a lot more energy vs the Italians, due in no small part to Clint Dempsey. He needs to start again in the next game. Donovan looked great too, especially after US went down to 9 men. Realizing he had no support up front, he kept making runs on his own at the Italian defense and creating trouble for them.

	Points	Goal Differential
Italy	4	2
Czech Republic	3	1
Ghana	3	0
USA	1	-3

First tiebreaker is goal differential, second one is head-to-head. Here's what needs to happen for the US to advance:

If Italy beats the Czech Republic, the US needs to win vs Ghana
If Italy ties the Czech Republic, the US needs to beat Ghana by 5+ goals
If Italy loses to the Czech Republic, the US needs to either beat Ghana by 6+ goals or beat them by 5 goals, at which point lots will be drawn to see if the US or Italy advance

Realistically speaking, only the first situation is feasible. Let's just hope the Italians don't pull any of that funny business that they're famous for and set up a draw with the Czechs before the game, since a draw lets them advance with 5 points.

Job and stuff

2006-06-17T23:15:00.000-04:00

Between my new job, the one class I'm taking and the WORLD CUP, I feel like I have no free time. As such, I keep making mental notes about things to blog about, but never get around to it. Time to unclog the mental pipe.

I found the job by posting my resume on the infested phishing pool that is Craig's List. A friend, who works as an HR recruiter, suggested it; otherwise, I wouldn't have even considered it. Here is a summary of the phone interview:

Him: So how much are you looking to get paid?
Me: $12/hour.
Him: How about $3/hour?
Me: ...
Him: So, do you like going to bars?
Me: Not really.
Him: [Goes into a short description of what I would be doing - tech helpdesk and some Excel stuff.]
Me: So... $3/hour, eh?
Him: No, that was a joke. I was just testing your reaction.

When I told my friend about this exchange, he didn't seem surprised, so I assume recruiters do this sort of thing often. A few days later, I had an in-person interview which lasted all of 5 minutes. I didn't even meet their tech guy; he told the recruiter he trusted him about the hirings. Some hours later I get a call that I got the job.

It's a pretty small mortgage company located right by Fort McHenry, which I am now obligated to visit. Their tech guy is their whole IT department, but he doesn't seem too overloaded. After my first week, the work seems trivial and somewhat tedious. No programming involved, sadly.

Within a quartermile radius of the building there is a rancid smell that resembles something like sundried tomatos. At first, I thought it was coming from the restaurant that was close by (which actually turned out to be most excellent on my first visit there). After a few days, I finally asked someone what the smell was.

Sugar. Coming from the ancient Domino Sugar factory that's right on the bay next to us. You put too much of anything in one place, and it'll start smelling different. I actually used to think that the factory was closed and just remained as a sort of monument along with the rest of the historic landmarks around the Chesapeake Bay. The concept of a huge turn-of-the-century style factory operating in the US somewhat surprises me. It's easy to start thinking that all major labor has been outsourced to second and third world countries, and the only thing left here is the infotech industry.

Mosquitotone

2006-06-13T00:21:00.000-04:00

This* is the best reversal of a technology's function I've seen in a while. A high frequency sound that only adolescents can hear, developed last year and marketed to shoo away hooligans from storefronts, has been co-opted by the adolescents themselves. It's now being used as a cell phone ringtone, including during schooltime when using a cell is disallowed.

I can't wait to try one of these out; so far, it seems they're only available in UK. If anyone has an mp3 of it, pass on the awesomeness! Meanwhile, note to self: when you turn 40, get an ultra-sound implant (they'll surely be available by then).

* Use BugMeNot to read the article.

Movie review: Nothing (2003)

2006-06-12T23:39:00.000-04:00

From the makers of Cube, comes a comedy about Nothing. Except that this is not Seinfeld and it's not really all that funny. This movie has the same problem as the other ones by Vincenzo Natali - great idea, poor execution.

Cube had some of the most hateable, stereotypical and cliched characters that you can imagine, and still ended up being a great movie because it kept you wondering what will happen in the next room. Nothing has the "hateable characters" part and instead of the Cube-like suspense, it has... nothing. Sorry, that was too easy, let me try again.

When there is literally nothing around, there's not much you can use for the storyline. The only thing left is the two guys making stupid jokes. Maybe it would've helped if one of them hadn't been Andrew Miller, who also co-wrote the screenplay. You know the really annoying retard from Cube? Yeah, that's him. He even sort of plays a retard in this movie, including the whole "cowering on the ground while rocking back and forth" bit.

I should probably mention the plot. Two guys are having very bad days, but worry not - all their problems can be made to disappear. Anything that disappears is in turn replaced by "nothing". That is all. The ending was even worse than the one in Cube. While there are some funny moments (all the bouncing around made me chuckle), I wouldn't recommend it.

World Cup thoughts

2006-06-10T20:35:00.000-04:00

I was considering posting predictions before the tournament started, but I don't watch enough soccer* games because I don't get the channels that carry the good leagues (sorry, MLS just does not hold my attention) and therefore my predictions would be based completely on past World Cups, which is to say they'd be mostly worthless.

There have been more 1-0 games than I'd like to see so far. I'm not sure whether to attribute this to subpar performances of the powerhouses, or to the fact that their underdog opponents have probably qualified using this exactly this type of conservative and defense-oriented play. Paraguay and Serbia & Montenegro in particular fit this mold.

Ever since reading this post, I've been looking towards the Portugal/Angola match with the hope of seeing some fisticuffs. Unfortunately none came, as all was gentlemanly. The single goal in the game was scored in the 4th minute in the most unlikely fashion. Luis Figo of Portugal, 34 years old and coming out of international retirement to play in the WC, raced around some random Angolan pylon and went on to make a great centering pass which resulted in the goal by Pauleta.

Speaking of Angola, check out their flag. Yes, that is a hammer-and-sickle with a machete in place of the hammer and a cogwheel in place of the sickle. Since the unification of Germany, Angola is the only country whose national flag resembles the old Soviet symbol. What does an African country have to do with the Soviets? Apparently, Angola was yet another Cold War battlefield. In the mid 70's, two rival anti-Portuguese rebel forces, the FNLA and MPLA, were supported by the USA and USSR, respectively. You can guess which faction won out. (Otherwise, read this.)

Since when do soccer stadiums have jumbotrons? They never show them on TV, and I've always figured that they'd have to be too high in the sky for the fans to see. In one of the games, the goalie punted the ball straight into the jumbotron. That thing is way up there from the angle they showed it, though, so I bet that never happens again for the rest of the tournament.

Can't wait to watch the Ukraine, USA and Brazil. I fear that Shevchenko will not play, unfortunately.

* Despite living in the US, calling it soccer during the World Cup just seems wrong. I was recently discussing the intuitiveness of calling the game "football" in an IRC channel consisting of mostly Americans, and not very surprisingly, the consensus was that the rest of the world should switch to calling it "soccer". Seems like that plan may have already been put into action - is it me or are the ESPN and ABC announcers trying to squeeze "soccer" everywhere into their commentary? I heard one guy say a sentence with at least 3 instances of the word.

Ultimate pleasure and non-existance

2006-06-09T00:34:00.000-04:00

You've all heard this one before, but bear with me. Pretend that there is a machine that can keep you in a state of constant pleasure. "Constant pleasure" may sound like an oxymoron, but this is a very smart machine and can vary the patterns with which it stimulates your neurons so that your pleasure will be always be at a constant maximum. There are enough such machines for everyone in the world, for those who want it. Additionally, the health and safety of the users will be taken care of by reliable auxillary machines. All of these automatic systems are perfectly reliable and flawless for the purpose of this thought experiment.

Would you want to be hooked up to such a pleasure apparatus? If you were unsure or afraid to commit, you could set a time limit on how long you'd be hooked up to it, but the first thing you'd do when that time expired is to ask to be hooked right back into the machine.

Now that you're hooked up, there is a slight dilemma. On the one hand, you're experiencing a drug-like high with none of the negative side effects. You have no inclination of disconnecting, because any other activity would just give you less pleasure. Whatever your arguments may be along the lines of "true happiness is not just pure hedonism", whatever your alternative methods to happiness are - they all indirectly lead to stimulating your neurons in a pleasurable way. Except that those methods are inferior to the pleasure machine, one which also has the effect of not letting you feel any "shallowness" as a result of the simplicity from gaining pleasure in such a crude way.

On the other hand, you are essentially dead to all your friends and relatives. They wouldn't be able to contact you in any way, unless you specified that certain people would be able to interrupt your ecstasy. But why would you? Any interruption just leads to a decrease in your pleasure/happiness (used interchangeably at this point), and anyway, your friends and relatives can just hook up to a machine and forget whatever concerns they had that made them want to contact you in the first place. Dilemma solved.

This will eventually lead to all of humanity being hooked up. (Meanwhile, the life support system / security system is always advancing to make sure we can keep on getting our high forever with no interruptions.) One could argue that we are no longer human, or that we are no longer living humans. This might be even true subjectively - it would be hard to claim that we are still conscious since our state of mind never changes. For all intents and purposes, we are as alive as a rock.

Which posits the question - what's the point? How is this any different from being actually dead (aside from the pain of dying, etc)? Roger Williams in MoPI calls people who choose this fate "black holes", a pretty morbid yet accurate description. If life is a continuous fluctuation on a continuum between pain and pleasure, then that continuum is circle shaped; ultimate pleasure ends up in the same place as ultimate pain - non-existance.

I see this as the fate of humanity and technology - the finale of the Singularity. People are always striving to experience life in the safest and most pleasurable way, and the situation I've described is the complete culmination of those goals. I don't personally feel any shame in such an ending, though I suspect I'm in the minority.

One possible alternative is that we choose to retain our consciosness in order to explore the universe with the goal of answering the big questions. By that, I mean "what's the origin of the universe and is there anything 'outside' of it?" If we manage to obtain those answers, maybe we may reach something superior to the pleasure machine, but this as far as I'm willing to speculate.

Nosejob

2006-06-07T23:25:00.000-04:00

Last week I had a septoplasty. It's a type of plastic surgery on your nose that straightens out the wall between the nostrils (septum). Mine was crooked for reasons unknown. Either I headbutted a soccer ball too many times or I was born with it that way.

This all started when my mom noticed I was having chronic breathing problems, something that I was already used to and didn't notice as much. I went to the local ear/nose/mouth guy (in Russian, we call them uhagorlanos, which translates literally into "ear/throat/nose" and it rolls off your tongue, not so in English) and his diagnosis was that I needed the surgery.

At first I agreed to it, but before I could finalize the deal, I decided to get a second opinion. This same uhagorlanos was also the plastic surgeon, and I thought this was all too convenient for him to come up with that diagnosis. Little did I know, all the uhagorlanos's in the area (and maybe in the country?) also doubled as plastic surgeons. It's like being both the candymaker and the dentist, creating your own business. Ah well, what was I gonna do.

So I went ahead with the septoplasty, and finally had it last week. I wasn't actually nervous about it at all, I didn't think about it really until the day before the surgery. From all accounts, this is a very common procedure with a high chance of success and little risk, so I wasn't worried. My only concern was the general anaesthesia, under which I would be going for the first time. I've had my adenoids taken out in Kiev when I was little, but it was under local anaesthasia (how did I manage to stand all that pain?).

The last thing I remember was being told that the anaesthasia and an anti-nauseum agent was being put into my IV. The next thing I knew, I was being woken up by the nurse. I had my nose bandaged over and naturally felt dizzy and a little nauseous. After recovering from the initial state and quickly relearning how to walk, I let my mom drive me back home.

The first 24 hours were the hardest. I was oozing from every orifice - eyes tearing up, going to the bathroom all the time, and nosebleeding a lot. The toilet breaks were due to the heavy IV injections; the tears were either a general symptom of plastic surgeries or it was due to my pollen allergies, I'm still not sure.

After the first day, the nosebleeding stopped as it all dried up, and now I was more congested than I've ever been in my life. This required lots and lots of saline drops. I was also taking antibiotics and narcotics that I was prescribed by the surgeon. It was not a pleasant time, mostly because I underestimated the severity of the recovery process. I thought the operation would be a breeze, and I was right about that, but I didn't really give thought about what would happen afterwards.

Then there were the splints. The evil plastic splints I had inserted into my nose for support, which were supposed to stay there for a whole week. I only started really feeling them after the third or fourth day when the nose healed a bit. Oh my god, I wanted more than anything to take them out. More than once, I wanted to take them out myself prematurely, since I knew they were only attached by a single stitch from each side. Alas, I perservered.

Today I finally had them removed by the surgeon. While I studied up on the septoplasty ahead of time, I knew nothing about how the splints were to be taken out. Was there to be more anaesthesia? No. It turned out the procedure only took ten minutes. He decongested me with some extra strong spray (I need some of that stuff), cut off one stitch from each nostril, and then used spincers to pull out the splints, which did hurt a little bit. Then he removed the final remaining stitches. It was done.

I breathed in. It felt like I was wearing an oxygen mask. I was trying to savor this incredibly tasting air, despite my nose bleeding from the recently cut stitches. The doctor said it was "hyperbreathing" because of the decongestent, and that I'd normally breathe a little less oxygen. It didn't matter - the splints were gone, the agony was gone and I was getting high on oh-two.

I'm now writing this with a slightly congested nose due to my allergies, but there's a very noticeable difference. It worked, whaddaya know.

The Pirate Bay update

2006-06-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

from TPB blog:

... here are some reasons why TPB is down sometimes - and how long it usually takes to fix:

Tiamo gets *very* drunk and then something crashes: 4 days

Anakata gets a really bad cold and noone is around: 7 days

The US and Swedish gov. forces the police to steal our servers: 3 days

.. yawn.

from speech by the leader of the Pirate Party:

We are speaking here about the time when the Church went out in its full force and ruled that it was unnecessary for its citizens to learn to read or to write, because the priest could tell them anyway everything they needed to know. The Church understood what it would mean for them to lose their control.

Then came the printing press.

Suddenly there was not only a source of knowledge to learn from, but a number of them. The citizens – who at this time had started to learn to read – could take their own part of the knowledge without being sanctioned. The Church went mad. The royal houses went mad. The British Royal Court went as far as to make a law that allowed the printing of books only to those print owners who had a special license from the Royal Court. Only they were allowed to multiply knowledge and culture to the citizens.

This law was called "copyright".

Photos of pirate demonstration.

Get ready for 06-06-06

2006-06-04T00:14:00.000-04:00

Party in Hell - Devil's Spawn - Slayer Day

Celebrate in style.

Torrent community hits back (maybe)

2006-06-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

On May 31, the headquarters of thepiratebay.org, one of the most popular torrent sites, got raided by the Swedish police. TPB is famous for its hilarious email exchanges with representatives of members of the MPAA, RIAA and other organizations (archives can be viewed here). I hope all this gets sorted out and the site comes back up soon.

In the meantime...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- The Web site of Sweden's national police was shut down after a hacker attack that investigators on Friday said could be a retaliation for a crackdown on a popular file-sharing site called The Pirate Bay. (link)

This probably doesn't help TPB's legal case, but it sure does send the big "fuck you" towards the corporate establishment, and that's good enough for me. The connection is pure speculation, anyway.

It was the best and worst of times

2006-06-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

from Kottke:

This has got to be in the running for the strangest blog post ever: "Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura, but instead a fellow Taylor student of hers, Whitney Cerak." It's a case of mistaken identity; Laura died 5 weeks ago and was buried as Whitney. I can't imagine what that would feel like for either family.

While the emotions are running high for people who knew only one of the girls, it must be really hard on those who knew both, since they must confront their own feelings about which person they valued more.

Movie review: Pixote (1981)

2006-05-31T01:30:00.000-04:00

A Brazilian kid lives a life of crime that culminates in his death in a police shootout. Somewhere in there he starred in a movie, playing the same role he does in life. That's Pixote for you.

It's tempting to make comparisons to City of God because of the violent kids in Brazil thing, but they really don't have much else in common. There is a lot of sexual exposure of various sorts, some of which may turn off our more close-minded viewers.

The characters in this movie are so cool, especially Dito. Afro-sporting, sunglasses-wearing, balls-squeezing (his own), he just knows what's up. Little Pixote himself is the most stoic kid I've seen in a role of this kind. It was even hard to relate to him sometimes, because his facial expression rarely changed.

Very gritty movie. A bit long, but I promise you won't get bored at any point.

Fight Club realized

2006-05-31T01:07:00.000-04:00

via Ilya:

Inspired by the 1999 film "Fight Club," starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton, underground bare-knuckle brawling clubs have sprung up across the country as a way for desk jockeys and disgruntled youths to vent their frustrations and, in some cases, seek glory on the Internet.

When I was reading this article, I felt adrenaline rushing through my veins.

"This is as close as you can get to a real fight, even though I've never been in one," the soft-spoken Siou said.

Despite his reserved demeanor he daydreams about inflicting pain on an attacker. "I have fantasies about it," he said.

I think I would seriously consider participating. I can count the number times I've fought in my life on one hand, all when I was little. I think I've only won one of those, mostly because I was more interested in stopping the fight than defending myself. What if I really did defend myself?

I'm probably not a good fighter now by any means, but having never been in a serious fight, I wouldn't know. I'd probably get my ass kicked the first few times. But I'd get better. So, if anyone knows of such a place in the greater Baltimore area, lemme know. In the meantime, I'll stick to roller hockey.

I know a bot

2006-05-31T01:02:00.000-04:00

She can ban you so hard. (Wtf?)

Fat kids

2006-05-31T00:37:00.000-04:00

via The Speculist:

In Arkansas, for instance, children's report cards now include their B.M.I., or body mass index, along with their grades. The governor, Mike Huckabee recently lost more than 100 pounds and is passionate about stopping the "obesity epidemic." Maryland is considering a similar standard.

At first glance, this doesn't sound like a bad idea. If the worst it might do is hurt some kids' feelings in order to fight obesity, why not? But as the NY times article reports, similiar efforts have just led to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, as kids compete for the lowest B.M.I.

Book review: Ender's Game (1977)

2006-05-29T02:38:00.000-04:00

After constantly hearing about this book from other people, when I saw it at a mere $2.99 at Daedalus Books, I had to get it. This is a kids' book for all intents and purposes. It's about kids and it's written in a very simple language. I wish I had read it when I was 12 or so.

The story is similiar to Starship Troopers; I even had to check which book the Starship Troopers movie was based on (a novel of the same name by Robert Heinlein). The pace of the book is relentless and I read it in about three days.

There are a lot of action scenes described in the story that got to be a little tiresome, especially since some of them are hard to visualize. The duality of the main character got to be a little annoying.

I suppose the most appealing aspect of this book is the feeling of omnipotence you feel as you follow the path of the main characters. These are kids doing things of which most adults aren't capable. The ending was pretty cool.

The Metamorphosis of Yours Truly

2006-05-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, I took a Myers-Briggs test and my result was INTP. I took it again yesterday, and unsurprisingly, the result was ISTP. I attribute this change to a sort of "growing up" that I went through. I used to read tons of theoretical books, eager to transform my world view into the best possible one, while contemplating the future of humanity. I hungered to change things, but I never went as far as to actually take any action, and eventually that hunger dissipated.

The perfect example of one such book is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. It was a life changing book in all respects, and it put in me a period of propagandazing to everyone about its lessons, followed by frustration when my efforts were having no effect. This mentality that I was in was partly responsible for me almost flunking my junior year of high school. I decided that I'd postpone changing the world and begrudgingly started concentrating on school again.

Years later, I've seen many similiar books, both similiar in content and in style. That ultra-persuasive style, especially for young and malleable kids like my younger self. It really does pay to be skeptical, because there's many false prophets out there. I'm not saying that Daniel Quinn is one of these, but there's many things he misrepresents.

The best thing I got out of reading Ishmael was discovering Richard Dawkins and his ultra-Darwinist worldview. It also made me more cynical and jaded than ever before, and my goal in life started revolving more around experiencing the little things and not worrying about the big problems.

To bring this around full circle, I now live in the moment and enjoy sensations more than actual knowledge gathering. I'm still somewhat of an intellectual, but when I read things now, I enjoy more the style and clarity with which something is being communicated to me, rather than the content itself. This goes for other media too, such as movies. Plot is of little importance to me if the production and acting is subpar.

I think that this change has been a positive one because it lets me deal with stress better, even though it causes me to disregard my responsibilities sometimes in lieu of pleasant sensations from procrastination. In ten years, I'll take the quiz once more to see if I've changed again.

Movie review: Fitzcarraldo (1982)

2006-05-26T00:48:00.000-04:00

What a disappointment. It's like Herzog tried to recreate the magic of Aguirre, but fails. The characters aren't as likeable, even Kinski seems pathetic in this movie. The Aguirre soundtrack is way better. Or maybe it's just that I expected another Aguirre, but got something different instead. Either way, Aguirre is better.

The main character is once again taken by some irrational desire, this time to build an opera house in the middle of the jungle. Why? That's never really explained. It's hard to sympathize with him because of this, but the opera house becomes a nonfactor as the movie progresses.

I think this will be the last Herzog movie I'll watch for a while. Stick with Aguirre and Kaspar Hauser.

Statutory rape

2006-05-23T20:50:00.000-04:00

What a horrible concept. There are so many double standards and inconsistencies with it, and calling it "rape" is just silly.

The whole "you're not old enough to make those decisions" mentality pisses me off. It's the reason why the minimum voting age used to be 21 in the US, and is now 18 (still pretty high). Younger citizens tend to have more liberal ideas, which is bad for the status quo that the legislators like to preserve, so they naturally make the minimum voting age to be high. Granted, voting is down these days, but the point still stands. Likewise, if it were up to some old farts, people wouldn't have sex until they were into their thirties, and only for procreation.

One of the apparent reasons for statutory rape is that adults can trick underage teens into having sex with them. The problem with that is that teens can still trick other teens, and adults can still trick other adults, yet those situations are perfectly legal. There are all kinds of absurdities that have resulted from these laws, including guys getting prosecuted for having sex with underage girls, despite the fact that both the girl AND her parents consented to this.

Pregnancies and STDs aren't decreased by statutory rape laws since two underage kids can still have sex legally. Making various forms of sex illegal is not the solution, people will still do it in secret. The solution is to educate the public and provide ample condoms/pills.

While thinking about this subject, I started wondering what other common victimless crimes are illegal (at least in the US). Besides the obvious one of drug use, there is also the lesser known underage tattooing. Apparently, it's illegal to get a tattoo in most states if you are under 18, even if you have parental consent. It was banned altogether in South Carolina, until recently. Good thing I never wanted one or I would've been pretty dejected. What a crock of bullshit.

The kitchen sink

2006-05-23T19:40:00.000-04:00

Taking care of the elderly who have trouble walking is like living in slow motion. You are completely binded to their pace, as you walk with them, dress them, and talk to them. It's pretty frustrating sometimes. When I go home after being with my grandmother, I feel like I'm being unchained.

I got a speeding ticket for going 75 in a 55. Arrrggh. I was planning to use "never got a speeding ticket in all my life" as part of my defense, until I remembered I've gotten one before.

On the bright side, end of the semester, yay.

Movie review: Aguirre (1972)

2006-05-21T01:42:00.000-04:00

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is the second Herzog movie I've seen, and I only realized this when I went to the IMDb page after watching it. Apparently, all of his movies are pretty drawn out and this is no exception. The story is about a group of Conquistadors from Pizzaro's expedition who are searching for the legendary El Dorado.

For me, it's all about the atmosphere. There are great visuals throughout the movie of the Peruvian jungle (where it was filmed) and the persistent mist. The soundtrack is by a 70's German band called Popol Vuh and it's what makes the film what it is. That, and the acting of Klaus Kinski, who fought with Herzog throughout the filming, but went on to make other pictures with him, such as Fitzcarraldo which I plan to see. The other movie by Herzog that I've seen is Kaspar Hauser, also pretty good.

Here is the theme from Aguirre by Popol Vuh. Oh, and the movie is in German.

Code Scarecrow

2006-05-18T22:35:00.000-04:00

I just read the best story/novel in a while - The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's been gaining popularity online in the past few years, and I know I've seen it before but didn't read it for some reason, probably because it was long. This time I did read it, and boy, was it worth it.

The story is about the world before, during and after the Singularity. Apparently, the first chapter is not for everyone, so if you're one of those people - the book gets better after it. You can read it for free online or order a paper copy for $11.95.

Nineteen eighty niiiine

2006-05-17T23:38:00.000-04:00

That Kevin Bewersdorf guy from LOL has some gems among his tracks. Here are two from his Slow Dudes album:

And here are two from the soundtrack of LOL:

Quantum mechanics and determinism

2006-05-17T17:08:00.000-04:00

I've had a strong dislike for quantum mechanics ever since I can remember, not an uncommon sentiment. Lately, I've narrowed it down to the fact that quantum mechanics gets in the way of determinism, the beautiful theory that uses causality as the driving force in the universe.

Determinism would be the most intuitive theory in the world if not for the part where it gets rid of that "free will" that people like to cling to so much. To paraphrase Spinoza, a stone that is thrown thinks that it is flying towards the spot it desires, when it's really just being acted upon by the force of gravity.

Quantum mechanics seemingly throws a wrench into determinism by making events at the subatomic level to be undeterministic. If those events can not be predicted, then causality breaks down and determinism stops working.

I don't believe that quantum mechanics invalidates determinism, and here is why:

* Quantum mechanics is a different type of theory than classical mechanics. It serves more as a metaphor (though, a consistently accurate one) to physical reality, than physical reality itself (see section 5.6.2 of A Theory of Determinism by Ted Honderich for quotes from Heisenberg, Schrodinger and others).

* Most hidden variable theories, which postulate that we lack some knowledge with which we would be able to predict events on the subatomic level, are supposedly discredited by Bell's theorem. The problem is that Bell is making a universal negative proposition in regards to the physical world. I can say that there can't be striped yellow elephants in the universe because none have been found, but that doesn't mean they don't exist or won't be evolved in the future.

* Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle claims that the position and momentum of a particle can not be known with absolute certainty at the same time. Moreover, if one is known with absolute certainty, the other one is not known at all - it ceases to exist and/or it's meaningless to talk about it.

To say that it's "meaningless to talk about it" commits the fallacy of operationism, which states that the property of some object is whatever we measure that property to be. Honderich says:
Operationism has the consequence, among others, that if we have two ways of measuring length, then the fact of the matter is that we have two different concepts of length. So with electrical charge. This cannot be correct.
Just because we are unable to measure the position or momentum doesn't mean they're not there. Which brings me to the "it ceases to exist" part. If it really doesn't exist, then determining it is simply not an issue. Its lack of existance is not a problem for determinism any more than would be any other arbitrary absurd concept (e.g. the "nostalgicness" of a particle) which also does not exist.

To summarize, (1) quantum mechanics shouldn't be expected to do what it can't do, (2) hidden variables might exist which, if known, will make subatomic events deterministic, and (3) the uncertainty principle doesn't falsify determinism.

RepRap

2006-05-15T23:15:00.000-04:00

How I love replication. RepRap is a machine that is still in design stages, but its potential is pretty mindblowing. Straight from the wiki:

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-Prototyper.
A universal constructor is a machine that can replicate itself and - in addition - make other industrial products. Such a machine would have a number of interesting characteristics, such as being subject to Darwinian evolution, increasing in number exponentially, and being extremely low-cost.
A rapid prototyper is a machine that can manufacture objects directly (usually, though not necessarily, in plastic) under the control of a computer.
The project described in these pages is working towards creating a universal constructor by using rapid prototyping, and then giving the results away free under the GNU General Public Licence to allow other investigators to work on the same idea. We are trying to prove the hypothesis: Rapid prototyping and direct writing technologies are sufficiently versatile to allow them to be used to make a von Neumann Universal Constructor.

From the interview a year ago by The Speculist of Adrian Bowyer, the creator of the machine:

Is your ultimate goal to create a RepRap that is capable of 100% self-replication? Or will you leave that to experimenting users once you release your first version?
The later. The machine will evolve as the people who download it improve it. One of the many roads to improvement will be reducing bought-in parts.

If people will be able to tinker with it to the point of complete self-replication, surely they can tinker with it to the point where it can use other raw materials besides plastic and metal, such as... cotton. What's made from cotton? Oh yeah, the US currency. In fact, you don't even need to go that far - many currencies from other countries are made from plastic.

Surprisingly, there's no mention of such or similiar concerns on RepRap's website. In fact, the only mention any sort of possible abuse is on their "what would you make with it" page:

Weapons
No thanks. However, every other manufacturing technology that people have come up with has been used to make weapons, and there is no way to make RepRap an exception. Give people an internal combustion engine, and a few will make tanks; at least many more will make ambulances...

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic at the idea, I just wish there was more attention being paid to these somewhat philosophical questions. Even The Speculist shies away from asking anything controversial in his interview.

Movie review: LOL (2006)

2006-05-14T23:56:00.000-04:00

I expected LOL to be about internet dating, but it had to do more with cell phones than the internet. I couldn't relate to it as such, since my cell phone is ancient and can't do anything fancy like the ones in the film, like sending photos.

I felt like this was a rehash of Kissing on the Mouth, the first movie by this director, with some new faces and some new places. Joe Swanberg said after the movie that he tries not to use his friends in more than one movie because they usually have trouble acting like a different person.

One thing I didn't realize until the movie was over is that the whole thing was improvised from start to finish. For example, two people who had never met before in real life, meet at a party in the movie and have an intimate connection. From that point on they are a big part of the plot, whereas if they didn't have this connection, the film would probably veer in another direction.

A cool part of the movie was when one of the characters collects noises made by random people using their mouth and then uses them to make music, a sort of video collage. They gave out the soundtrack to to the movie along with other music by the same guy as a free gift when the screening was over.

In other news, the Devils lost and are out of the playoffs. Having their captain retire and losing their next best defenseman, who went to play with his brother in Anaheim, is rough.

Movie review: These Girls (2005)

2006-05-13T18:31:00.000-04:00

I missed the shorts on Thursday because I was working a class project and didn't go to see Darkon because of the Devils game, but I did get to see These Girls.

I'll be honest, I wanted to see it because it sounded kinky. It does allright in that respect, but it's also a pretty engaging movie in its own right. It has the feel of a "light" comedy, which makes sense since the film was based on a play that had lots of dark and abusive stuff which was cut out of the movie.

The acting is great, especially by David Boreanaz (of Buffy's Angel fame) who plays Keith. My favorite part is when Keira (the brunette on the right) is seducing Keith for the first time; the atmosphere is pretty electric.

These Girls is coming out on DVD next week, so it will be a while before you'll be able to rent it.

It's a start

2006-05-13T18:15:00.000-04:00

The Devils did indeed continue their record of never being swept by winning Game 4 today and staying alive. Speaking of the 1975 Islanders, Zach Parise who plays for the Devils, is the son of J.P. Parise who was on that Islanders team. Here is an article about it.

"We won 15 games in a row. Four should be easy."

Game 5 is tomorrow night, hopefully the momentum will carry over.

Movie review: Baxter (1989)

2006-05-12T23:08:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that Baxter has the best ending I've seen in a while.

This is a French movie and I watched the subtitled version. I don't know if a dubbed one exists, but I'm sure it's inferior because it would lack the eerie nasal voice that represents the dog's thoughts.

Baxter is somewhat like Apt Pupil, but with less blackmail and more dog. Or like The Good Son, but with less Culkin and more... dog. The dog is such an interesting and complex character. Just when you thought you had him figured out, he does something unexpected.

This is not so much a horror movie, as a look at the darker side of the human (and dog) psyche, much like the two films above. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while.

First time for everything

2006-05-12T15:49:00.000-04:00

The New Jersey Devils have never been swept in their 16-year playoffs history. I'm not counting the '77-'78 season when they lost to the Flyers; they were the Colorado Rockies then, and it was merely a best-of-3 series.

Normally, in this day and age of statistics about every little thing, I hate giving importance to trends that go back so many years - those were completely different teams. This situation is different, though.

This feat won't be used by the Devils' opponents to formulate their gameplan, like TV announcers imply about so many useless statistics. Similiar to the St. Louis Blues who hadn't missed the playoffs in 26 years (until this year), this is merely a pride thing.

Which is why I really hope that on Saturday the Devils can at least win one game to keep the streak alive. Who knows, maybe they'll join the 1942 Maple Leafs and 1975 Islanders - the only teams in the history of the league to ever come back from being down in a 0-3 hole.

Majority Rule

2006-05-12T02:09:00.000-04:00

His party was the Brotherhood of Brothers,
and there were more of them than of the others.
That is, they constituted that minority
which formed the greater part of the majority.

Within the party, he was of the faction
that was supported by the greater fraction.
And in each group, within each group, he sought
the group that could command the most support.

The final group had finally elected
a triumvirate whom they all respected.
Now, of these three, two had final word,
because the two could overrule the third.

One of these two was relatively weak,
so one alone stood at the final peak.
He was: THE GREATER NUMBER of the pair
which formed the most part of the three that were
elected by the most of those whose boast
it was to represent the most of the most
of most of most of the entire state --
or of the most of it at any rate.

He never gave himself a moment's slumber
but sought the welfare of the greater number.
And all people, everywhere they went,
knew to their cost exactly what it meant
to be dictated to by the majority.
But that meant nothing, -- they were the minority.

-- Piet Hein

How to fall asleep instantly

2006-05-11T13:50:00.000-04:00

1. Stay up late
2. Go to bed and eventually fall asleep
3. Wake up when alarm clock goes off
4. Hit snooze button
5. Fall asleep instantly
6. Repeat steps 3-5 as many times as you wish. Expect diminishing returns.

Movie review: MirrorMask (2005)

2006-05-07T23:13:00.000-04:00

Since this is my first movie review on this site, a quick note about spoilers - don't expect to see any; I'm pretty anal about them myself.

MirrorMask is a fantasy film with a ton of eye candy and some humorous bits, but something is missing. The plot is pretty thin and includes some disconnects. Similiar movies like Labyrinth and The Neverending Story flowed beautifully, but this one jerks you into its dream world without any form of logic.

It takes too long setting up in the beginning, but maybe it was because I was just waiting for the girl to "go down the rabbit hole", which I knew was coming. Once that happened, though, I was left to comfortably enjoy the surreality that followed.

JWZ says that "the whole movie was Dave McKean's artwork come to life", and that's how it should be watched - a piece of art where plot is both absent and unnecessary.

KSR 2006

2006-05-06T17:05:00.000-04:00

I went to the Kinetic Sculpture Race today, yet another annual event. Baltimore really comes alive in the spring.

None of the people I asked could come, so I went by myself. This actually might've been a good thing since I was on rollerblades and they'd just lag behind or go too fast if they brought a bike. The ratio of bikers to rollerbladers there was around 20 to 1. Who wants to lug that thing around?

The photos above are chosen from the 70 or so that I took. There's nothing like skating backwards in front of a moving sculpture while taking its picture. Here are some other ones: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And here's me in front of the sculpture made by people from UMBC, woo!

I wimped out halfway through (the whole thing lasts over 8 hours), so I didn't get to see the obstacle course in Patterson Park, the mud portion of the race or the awards. Also, I wanted to get home to watch the Devils game, where they naturally got crushed. In any case, I plan to go next year, this time definitely bring other people and stay for the whole thing.

Break pads

2006-05-06T00:31:00.000-04:00

Chances are, you're probably thinking of some other break pads. The break on my rollerblades has been reduced to a thin sliver, and I'm only finding this out now because I haven't been skating in ages.

In my quest of acquiring a new pad, I called or visited no less than three different sporting goods stores and a Walmart, none of which had them. Not only that, they also didn't have any rollerblades. Now you may think this is not that surprising, but I've been able to buy break pads from two of them (PlayItAgainSports and Dick's) before. Apparently, they've both taken rollerblades and accessories thereof off their shelves within the last year.

Dick's' website advertises that they have them, so this is either a local thing or they're just bad at updating their site. Why has rollerblading lost popularity in the past few years?

Ironically, the Charm City Roller Girls are trying to revive the long forgotten roller derby. I'm planning on attending one of their "bouts" soon.

Incoming celluloid

2006-05-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

The annual Maryland Film Festival is next weekend. I've been anticipating it for a while, so I'm more excited about it than usual. These are the films I plan to see:

Thursday
7:30 PM Senator Theatre - Opening Night Shorts

Saturday
1:00 PM Charles Theatre - These Girls
5:30 PM Falvey Hall – Darkon

Sunday
2:00 PM Rotunda Cinematheque – LOL

At the Digital Entertainment Conference at UMBC last Saturday, Katie Hirsch mentioned that her film was to be shown at the MFF, which happened to be Darkon, one that I already planned to see. Then at the JHU Film Fest, the directors of Kissing on the Mouth said that their film, LOL, was also to be shown at the MFF, which also happened to be on my list of things to see. I'm pretty much obligated to see those two movies now.

Purdy

2006-05-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

I took these this morning a few blocks from my house using an ancient Sony DigitalMavica that uses floppies for storage, which explains the low resolution. A co-worker at my former job gave it to me since the model became obsolete years ago.

I like the contrast of suburbia with the urban skyline. The buildings are located in central Towson.

Ancel Keys experiment

2006-05-02T23:34:00.000-04:00

During WWII, 36 volunteers underwent starvation in an experiment conducted under the supervision of Dr. Ancel Keys. The results were mostly intuitive - starvation is cured with food. The one interesting thing to note is that when they were started being fed again, they became wild and uncontrollable, in contrast to their mostly timid behavior while malnourished.

This experiment is constantly referenced in all kinds of studies. Since the subjects were volunteers, the results help separate the physical symptoms from the ones caused by a psychological disorder such as anorexia.

This type of experiment would probably not be allowed to be run today for ethical reasons, and more importantly, you wouldn't be able to find 36 healthy men who were willing to put themselves under conditions that carried so much risk to their health, for no profit.

Todd Tucker talked about his book on the subject on the Diane Rehm show today.

Let's try this again...

2006-04-30T23:58:00.000-04:00

After a ~2 year hiatus I've decided to start blogging again. Partly because it saves me from repeating myself to people I know by just putting something in one place, partly because I've realized I enjoy writing and want to get better at it. Partly because it gives me that warm, cheesy feeling one gets from a MySpace of having something that is solely theirs.

We'll see how long I last this time. I think I've changed a lot so I want to keep the old blog separate from this one. Maybe I'll link to it one day.