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Thursday, July 26, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Function pointers
Here's a brief example of how to do function pointers in C++ and C#.
The functionality is the same in both examples: either the minimum or the maximum of two numbers is returned by MinOrMax, depending on a bool that is passed in along with the int's.
C++
int Min(int a,int b);
int Max(int a,int b);
int MinOrMax(int a, int b, bool findMin);
int Min(int a, int b)
{
return (a < b) ? a : b;
}
int Max(int a, int b)
{
return (a > b) ? a : b;
}
int MinOrMax(int a, int b, bool findMin)
{
int (*MIN_MAX)(int,int);
if (findMin)
{
MIN_MAX = &Min;
}
else
{
MIN_MAX = &Max;
}
int ret = (*MIN_MAX)(a, b);
return ret;
}
int main()
{
cout<<"Min(1,2) = "<<MinOrMax(1, 2, true)<<endl;
cout<<"Max(1,2) = "<<MinOrMax(1, 2, false)<<endl;
return 0;
}
C#
delegate int MIN_MAX(int a, int b);
static int MinOrMax(int a, int b, bool findMin)
{
MIN_MAX v;
if (findMin)
{
v = new MIN_MAX(Min);
}
else
{
v = new MIN_MAX(Max);
}
int ret = v(a,b);
return ret;
}
static int Min(int a, int b)
{
return (a < b) ? a : b
}
static int Max(int a, int b)
{
return (a > b) ? a : b;
}
static void Main()
{
MessageBox.Show("Min(1,2) = " +
MinOrMax(1, 2, true));
MessageBox.Show("Max(1,2) = " +
MinOrMax(1, 2, false));
}
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Hope springs... illogical
Fai: if hope is eternal, what is there left when there is no hope?
fuzzy: who said that hope is eternal? i don't even know what that means.
Fai: it is said hope springs eternal
fuzzy: right, what does that mean?
Fai: it means hope never dies
fuzzy: but it does, in some cases. like if i keep hoping that i'll see my dog by the end of the week, and then next week starts, then that hope has died, because it has happened and won't happen.
Fai: it didn't die, it simply passed
fuzzy: *because it hasn't happened
fuzzy: what if it did die?
Fai: it can't
fuzzy: or are you saying that hope never dies, but is simply reused for other purposes?
Fai: it has no physical limitations, there is no need to reuse it
fuzzy: once the week ends, and i haven't seen my dog, hope is gone. that's it. i hoped to see him this week, i didn't, hope is gone.
Fai: why is it gone? merely becase you do not dare hope that time can be reversed
fuzzy: hahaha
Fai: :D
fuzzy: hope is never gone, as long as we pretend that our universe is based on fairy-tale rules
Fai: sure
Friday, July 13, 2007
Bowling and more
Last week I was back in Chicago and had my fair share of adventures. Oh, where to begin? Well, first things first: I got to bowl with Bill. Yes, Bill. That Bill. Gates. Yes, I think we understand each other. You know, I was expecting that Bill would be quite a good player, but he's... well, he sort of sucks. Which is weird, especially for a guy who has two bowling alleys in his home. I kid you not, he has two: one upstairs, one downstairs. Freaking hell! And he still sucks. What does that tell you? It tells me that this man should spend more time bowling than helping out the poor. But that's neither here nor there.
So, there we are, 7th frame, so far we are neck and neck, all strikes. Just then Bill makes his biggest mistake and gets 9 pins on his first throw. I thought he was going to pop. I haven't seen him this angry since that Blue Screen of Death he got during the live demo of Windows 98. On the next throw Bill must have remembered that Blue Screen of Death: he rolled a gutter ball. You have not known fear until you came that close to beating a billionaire nerd at bowling, I had to consider my next move very carefully. I hit 9 pins. Bill leveled those Wal-Mart frames on me and my life flashed before my eyes. Wow, how boring. Before I knew what had happened, I found myself standing in front of the lane, watching a ball recede into the distance. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I hoped was a latent telekinetic ability. With all my might, I willed that damn ball to- I heard a hit. That's it, my life is forfeit. Would I be offered my favorite meal and a knife? Bill probably watched his fair share of samurai movies, seppuku is quite likely. After what seemed like eternity, I opened my eyes. Bill was beaming. He was quite happy for my success, to have continued where he himself has fallen. Long story short, I got 279, he got 267. I was never happier to get such a low score.
If this was all that happened to me that night, I think we would both agree that it was indeed a waste of energy to have woken up that day. But no, there was more.
Combined with the fact that this particular Chicago bowling alley hosted a game with Bill Gates, they were at the time also playing host to one of the biggest ping-pong tournaments in the world. Literally. The bowling alley was hosting the National Fat Guy Table Tennis Tournament.
You've probably got a fair idea of what a table tennis tournament is. In one word, it can be described as 'boring'. In two words it can be described as 'meh, OK'. But the Fat Guy Tournament is a sight to behold!
The rules of the Fat Guy Tourney are similar to those of regular table tennis, but due to the fact that the players are rather large, new rules are added to take advantage of the fat guys' natural gravitational field. See, fat guys are so massive that they posses a quite powerful gravitational field which, while mostly insignificant in everyday life, does quite a number on such a small object as a ping-pong ball. These gravitational fields can be utilized to produce never-before-seen maneuvers that, frankly, lesser players are simply incapable of replicating. Even if a player misses the ball, he can attempt to catch it in his gravity well and continue playing. While the rules do state that ball-body contact is equivalent to ball-table contact, in reference to the number of contacts allowed, and the ball may not come to rest on the body of the player, there is no rule against using the body's gravity to move the ball in complex orbits. In fact, body orbits are a basic necessity in the higher rungs of the tournament between strong players: it is nearly impossible to win a game if the player is not capable of performing at least a 1080 (3 complete orbits of the ball around the player).
At the tournament I observed games in three categories: Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3. Tier 3 held the lower-ranked players, while Tier 1 held the higher-ranked players. But player skill is not the only difference between the tiers. Tier 3 games were very similar in style to regular table tennis matches, with the obvious addition of the basic gravitational rules, but Tier 2 games added atmospheric effects to the mix: players are allowed to establish an atmosphere around themselves to help them. Fat guys are so massive that, in addition to affecting a ping-pong ball's motion, they are capable of having a thin atmosphere around them. At Tier 2 this atmosphere may consist of several heavy (non-toxic) gases as well as a slew of particles. The most widely used one was chalk dust. I was told that this is due to some inherent property of chalk, but I don't remember the details. During the game, this thin layer of atmosphere can act as a brake for the ball. Chalk dust increases the effect, while at the same time adding a spin to the ball. In addition to allowing various combinations of small particles in the atmosphere, the rules state that the player may establish a medium-scale weather system. I did observe slight winds around Tier 2 players, but the rules also put a limit on the speed of wind, which must be kept under a specific threshold. The rule about the weather system really only shines when applied to Tier 1 players, so I suspect that the reason the rule is in effect for Tier 2 players is that, given an atmosphere, weather around fat guys is all but unavoidable.
Tier 1 games is the main reason I chose to even blog about this event. They are spectacular! The skill, the orbits, the hurricanes, everything about the sport comes to a head when such powerful opponents face off. First off, yes, I said hurricanes. Tier 1 games do not have an imposed weather limitations, so a number of players develop devastating weather system around themselves to help in the game. I myself witnessed about three or four hurricanes, two small twisters and, what the announcers and fans all over the world have dubbed it, The Great Blue Spot. The Great Blue Spot is an atmospheric phenomenon that gets its name from Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm on that planet that is so large, it is capable of swallowing the Earth, and has lasted at least two centuries, and possibly quite longer. The Great Blue Spot is a hurricane in the atmosphere of the player known as Jove (English form of the name Jupiter), one of the best representatives of the sport. I was told that this hurricane is nearly four years old. It is blue because of the secret dyes Jove uses to intimidate his opponents. A somewhat dubious source also stated that the Blue Spot has swallowed more than 100 ping-pong balls during its lifetime, but obviously I have doubts about this figure.
Physics figures greatly into the sport: players use intuitive physics to predict orbits. I say intuitive because that is exactly what the players must do, develop intuition for the physics of the game, as using a good ol' TI-86 is a bit out of the question. After all, the player might drop it, and then what? Well, then they're pretty much shafted. Well, moving on. In Tier 2 and Tier 3 games, the better intuitive physicist has an upper hand on his opponent. In Tier 1 games, there's a bit of a twist: there are a number of fat guys moving around the players and the table. Their movements are semi-random and their weight is a closely-held secret, at least for the duration of the game. These fat guys represent an added random element, a way to throw the players off-balance and make the game even more challenging. There are usually five to seven fat guys moving around the table in different directions and at different speeds. Their motions are decided prior to the start of the tournament and they are communicated this information through radio linkups. As I said, the motions of the periphery fat guys is semi-random: the random movements are decided almost exclusive by a computer. 'Almost exclusively'. There is one event in every Tier 1 game that is decided by a person, usually one of the judges, beforehand, and that event is called the eclipse. The eclipse is an event, which happens once during a game, when the periphery fat guys are oriented into a line. This 'fat guy eclipse' has the potential for very strong forces on the ball, and on some occasions has been decided the outcome of the game. It is a random occurrence, so one cannot prepare for it, but the strongest players are able to use the eclipse to their advantage from almost any state of the game. I myself witnessed an eclipse occur while Titan (a powerful player from Oregon) was passing the ball to his opponent: the ball literally froze in the air before flying back toward Titan. All seemed lost. While a lesser player would surely have lost his cool, Titan used the sudden acceleration of the ball (due to the eclipse) combined with his own gravity to pull off the slingshot maneuver, forcing the ball to orbit his body and releasing it at the apogee (the farthest point in the orbit) where the force of the eclipse had by this time died down. As a result, the ping-pong ball slammed into Titan's opponent, a wiry New Yorker calling himself Sfinx, and broke, folding in on itself. Titan won the game!
Some would ask if random motion of fat guys is really a viable randomizer. While it is conceivable that a Rain Man-like player may be able to compute the changing conditions and take advantage of the situation, the penalty for cheating is immediate and permanent ban from all tournaments and events. So far, there have been no instances of the application of this rule.
The National Fat Guy Table Tennis Tournament is one of the wonders of the modern world and I urge everyone to try and attend a game if there is one near you. You will not be sorry!
Blog quirkiness
There are some issues with the blog as it now stands, the most obvious of which is the damn 'Expand' link on every single post. I'll try and work on that over the weekend. Damn scripts!
House on YouTube
What the hell is wrong with 'House' fans on YouTube?! Do a search for 'house md' (here's a link) and all you will find are music videos. That is, clips from the show spliced together with a soundtrack. That's all. There is a very small number of actual 'House' clips, something that I can watch in the background and have a small laugh while working on this damn bug. Argh!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Burnout Paradise
A new racing game is coming to the PS3 and the 360 that will use both systems' cameras in an unusual (and possibly dangerous) way: the cameras will snap a picture of your opponents when they crash, so you can see the torment you bring to other people's lives. Fun! Oh, and these pictures are immortalized on your hard-drive, so you can sneak a peak at your opponent's 'damn, my freaking engine just tore a hole in the car' pics. No, that's not creepy. Of course, the problem with this is obvious: instead of the camera actually pointing at myself, I'll train it on a picture of Will Ferell's portrayal of Janet Reno. Guaranteed to give nightmares!
Die Hard 4
Below is the review of 'Live Free or Die Hard', the 4th 'Die Hard' film. The whole review, as well as my overall rating of the movie, is major spoiler-territory. Click expand if you've seen the movie or don't care about me spoiling it.
So, first off, I give this film an A-. It's good on its own, but somehow not up to par with the rest of the series.
Now, let's start with what the film did right. The action scenes are phenomenal, McClane is back, kicking ass and taking names (or not even stopping to take names). The characters are great: John is the no-nonsense cop we've come to love, Lucy is a tough cookie, the bad guy is determined and scary and the henchmen come in a variety of flavors, ranging from Red Shirts to the jaw-dropping Mai and the parkour-trained Rand. The ensemble of actors also impressed me, as the producers didn't just use no-names to fill the smaller roles of the government officials. Kevin Smith's presence sort of surprised me, but the character wasn't a throw-away cameo, for which I'm grateful.
The computer hacks weren't all idiotic Hollywood-esque plot devices with no real-world basis. Sure, there were a few points that made me cringe, but nowhere near as many as there could be. For truly cringe-worthy technobable and a disgusting portrayal of technology, see 'Man of the Year'. Which is probably one of the very few reasons to see that movie. Moving on.
Of course, the overall production style and the Michael Bay-inspired action sequences and camera angles deserve a mention and a few extra points: the action scenes were very well done, taking the camera incredibly close to the action in some shots and doing wonderful long views in others. In particular, I enjoyed the overhead views of the helicopter flying around DC area as, almost outside the viewing area, we can see the car collisions that were just then triggered by the bad guys.
Of course, and this is a really big point, the rating of the film is increased by the subject matter. I am sick and tired of bad guys claiming to be patriots and "serving the interest of the country". This has been claimed by every hack Bad Guy in recent history: every season of '24' presents us with yet another white man behind the curtains who claims to love this country so much that he is willing to place millions of Americans at risk to protect them. Somehow, that makes sense to the writers. Whatever. The bad guy in the film is a similarly-themed patriot who is doing the country a favor, but the difference here is that what he is doing makes sense, on some level. While I may not agree 100% on the methods used, I must say that I see eye to eye with him on the underlying problem: America has not learned anything in the past 6 years. 9/11 caught the country with its pants down, and nothing has changed since. Katrina was, by definition, a clusterfuck. The federal systems in place for dealing with disasters, be they natural or man-made, are ineffective and incapable of preventing or dealing with anything other than a cat stuck in a tree. (My "favorite" example of the system in action is the foiling of the 2007 Fort Dix terrorist "plot": the government caught on to the plot after the idiots went to Circuit City to turn their training tapes into DVD's and an employee forwarded the tape to the feds.) The systems in place are overgrown, immobile, red-tape covered, outdated dinosaurs. I agree that a shakeup is what is needed. Certainly not as extreme as shutting down the entire country, but at least they're acknowledging that the problem exists.
Now, on to the bad. The worst thing about the film is that it takes so long to get started and doesn't maintain the pace consistently. There are great action sequences, but they are spread out, and in between them is slow chatter that attempts to explain the plot and character motivations. Boring!
The music is also a let-down: I didn't notice any of the scores from the first three movies popping up. What happened to the good ol' 'Die Hard' music? I miss it. That, and McClane's hair, but I can forgive that, somewhat.
Actually, that's it for the bad. As long as you can stay awake through the parts of the film that aren't filled with gunfire, you'll be set.
Oh, I forgot something: this movie is rated PG-13. Yeah, go figure, a 'Die Hard' film that's not R. But they pulled it off. I think it was through bribery. There is a lot of profanity in the film, and even two times when McClane drops the f-bomb, but in those instances there is too much gunfire to make the words out clearly. This is a bit of a detriment, but not seriously. Even if the film loses the sailor language of the first three movies, it still has enough and doesn't resort to idiotic replacements like 'gosh darn it'. That would have made me a very sad panda.
That's all for now. Watch the movie, it's good.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Mass Effect
There's all this hype about upcoming games: we know of a game a year before it comes out; we salivate over every single frame of the rare in-game animations the companies toss our ways; we are waiting for more games to come out than we are currently playing. The whole tires me out. And yet I can do nothing but salivate more and more as I watch this damn trailer: http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/mass-effect-trailer-starring-keith-david-277058.php
Oh, Keith David, you're dreamy. In that this-guy-has-a-scary-voice way. Yay.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Determinism
It has been far too long since my last blog post. And far too long since I've had a rant. I probably won't start with one, but I do hope to have one in the next few whatevers.
So, this first entry that have written in quite a long time, will be focused on determinism. Why? Why such a boring topic when I could rant about religious fundamentalists, cheese parties or the cutest dog in the world? Because that is what I will do. It is my fate, my destiny. Also, I've been thinking about this issue for a while and it seems best to put down my words and concepts before I move on to other things.
First, what is determinism and why do we care? To explain determinism, and much of what is to follow, I will use examples. To begin, let's consider an introductory-physics problem: two objects are moving along a plane, collide and bounce off, moving in new directions at new speeds. Determinism is this: a person not of the system, an outside observer, can look at this experiment at a point in time before the objects collide and can predict exactly what will happen in the future. Namely, the observer knows at what time the collision will occur and the resulting velocities of the two objects. That is determinism: objects of a system following a set of rules. Since there exist rules and things don't just happen at random, the future state of the system can be predicted if the current state is known.
Now, let's introduce another concept. I call it 'reverse determinism'. I'm not sure if there's a different name that older and wiser thinkers before me have come up with, but this is what I will call it. Reverse determinism is just that: ability by an outside observer to observe a system and accurately describe a previous state. Extending our above example, an observer can look at the system at a time after the objects have collided and be able to exactly calculate where the object originated and where the collision took place.
What's the point? Stop asking me that, if I knew the answer to that particular question, I imagine life would be much easier.
Now, let's look at our world, which is a hugely complicated system about which we know very little, and other comparable, but infinitely simpler, systems. First, let's consider a basic physics environment: a few objects moving on a frictionless plane. This is a very simple example, one that can be determined both forwards and backwards by a half-way competent physics student. The second example is Conway' Game of Life. This system is even simpler than the previous one: cells, or colonies, or whatever, exist on a grid. If a cell has 2 or 3 neighbors, it lives; any more or less, and the cell dies. If a space on the grid has exactly 3 cells as its neighbors, a new cell is born. You'd be surprised just how complex a system can be made from these simple rules: stable configurations of 'organisms' can be built from groups of cells. Some organisms are gliders, groups that fly diagonally across the playing field, replicators, groups that create exact copies of themselves, and glider factories, groups that go one producing gliders infinitely (or, at least, until interrupted). Some scientists have even devised computers that take input and perform calculation entirely within the Life playing field: they use gliders to communicate. I'm not sure how information is stored, or even if Computer Engineering concepts can be, or need to be, translated. But that's a deviation.
So, we have our three systems (our world, basic physics experiment, Game of Life), let's do some constructive thinkering.
First and foremost, the physics system is both deterministic and reverse deterministic, while the Game of Life is only deterministic. Why? The rules of the Game of Life are such that it is impossible in non-trivial cases to determine the previous state of a given system. Consider a very simple example: a blank board. Who is to say what the previous state was? Was the board empty, or was it just sparsely filled with single- or double-celled groups? All of this information is gone, so there are a large number of possible solutions for any particular state of the system. (The only exception to this is a state of the system termed Garden of Eden: these are configurations that are unattainable through the rules of the system, states that have to be set-up by an external source.)
What does it mean that the physics model is reverse deterministic? Who cares if the Game of Life is not reverse deterministic? I do. I care why one system can be 'wound back', while another can't be. I wonder what a non-deterministic system would look like. Imagine if that system was reverse deterministic. That means that you could reliably 'go back' through events that have already occurred, but going forward, 'Back to the Future', so to speak, is impossible, or perhaps simply inconclusive.
My theory on why the Game of Life is non-reverse deterministic is because of the lack of the conservation of energy (and of course matter): cells disappear into nothingness and are spontaneously born out of it. In the physical model, the two objects collide and change paths, but throughout it all they still remain, both mass and energy of the system staying constant. Even if we were to add friction to our physical model, a seemingly daunting problem to consider, the system still remains reverse-deterministic: friction results in heat, and by knowing exactly the amount of heat an object (in this case the plane and the moving objects) has it is possible to model the spread of heat back to source, giving us an accurate model of just what the state of the system was at some point in the past. The Game of Life lacks this ability to record events. There is no way to know that a cell existed in a particular location, or for how long.
Is our world deterministic? Is it reverse-deterministic? Perhaps.
First, is our world deterministic? If you were asked this question at the beginning of the 20th century, the answer would be a very loud 'yes'. That is, until quantum mechanics came along and spoiled the party. Quantum mechanics opened a dangerous flood-gate: there was no set path for an electron, no specific outcome for a simple interference experiment, the new fashion was chance, the new tool of the scientist was a probability graph. There are higher odds of electrons bouncing off a barrier, but a non-zero chance exists of that same electron passing right through. Poof! goes determinism, burned up like so much tinder in the fire. Granted, the probabilities are such that everyday objects, gargantuan in comparison to electrons, still behave in pre-quantum mechanics ways, but we are now faced with the reality about the most basic building blocks of our universe: no conclusion can be drawn about a future state. (Perhaps, if our world supports reverse-determinism, this is the world I tried to imagine a few paragraphs above.)
However, I do not agree that the universe plays with dice. Consider events in everyday life that can be assigned probabilities: the flip of a coin, tomorrow's rain, the chance of asking for 'a tall mocha, no whip, no lid' and the baristas actually getting an order right. All of these probabilities arise out of one fact: our lack of knowledge about the system in question. If you knew the state of every air molecule in the room and the velocity, both linear and rotational, of the coin, you could accurately predict the outcome of the toss. If you could instantly see the entire atmosphere of the Earth, knowing when and where it will rain will be a trivial task. Probabilities arise out of our lack of information. It is therefore possible that our current understanding of quantum mechanics as being a probability-driven field is based only on our sparse and inaccurate description of the universe. If that is indeed the case, quantum mechanics may very well be a deterministic part in the bigger deterministic system. If every part is deterministic, the system as a whole is deterministic.
What's it matter, though? Well, it doesn't. To accurately predict the future, or to look into the past, we must possess all the information about the current state of our world, have a working knowledge of all the underlying rules and a computational device powerful enough to calculate the next state of this monstrous machine. You'd better step outside for that, as well, since your actions will invariably change the outcome.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
This atheist's God
I was just talking to myself and decided that rambling on a blog makes me appear more sane than rambling to myself while writing Java applets. So, here goes.
I'm an atheist. But I don't dislike the idea of God. I don't dislike the concept of a higher being. I don't even argue it. Don't get me wrong, there're plenty of things that are associates with the idea of God that I sincerely dislike. But not the point of a deity. I only ask for concrete proof, and for the lack of it I am forced to conclude that there is no God. Sort of like saying that there are no unicorns. Except that a unicorn is more likely than God. As long as you're willing to accept a horse mangled in an industrial accident as a unicorn. But that's not the point.
The point is that I see no reason whatsoever to believe that there is a God. That there is an elderly bearded white guy in the clouds (clearly a Simpsons-centric view) who gives a rat's ass about the minute details of my life, who created the world in 6 days (shut the hell up about the definition of 'day', you'd make Bill Clinton vomit in rage), who put fossils in the ground to screw with us, who aged the moon, who put a crap-load of photons in space aimed at Earth to 'fake' the view of stars and galaxies. There is no reason to believe that this God exists. Why? Because everything in the world can be explained without this God.
Except one. The beginning. The Big Bang. Or was it really the Big Bang? I have some doubts about that. Which is not the point of this post, you're right. Anyhow. So far, we don't have the answer to that particular question. So, that's why propose a new religion. A belief in a God who's slightly different. Here's my image of God:
God created the Universe. He farted and a lot of hydrogen started filling 'space', a new concept that started existing at the same time as the hydrogen. God looked at his creation. He saw that physics would drive this hydrogen into galaxies, stars, planets (after the stars go through a supernova to create heavy elements), life and, in the end, yours truly, sitting here and typing up a post about this God. He saw all of this, realized that there was no need for him to exist anymore and pulled a Kurt Cobain, which, incidentally, is all that cosmic microwave background radiation that we're seeing nowadays. The end.
So, I guess this would make me an atheist who believes that a God once existed. What do you call that?
</ad absurdum>
Sunday, June 03, 2007
HD TV
HD TV is amazing! It's so damn pretty. I usually watch recorded shows, owing to the fact that I'm normally not home yet when the shows are running and that I don't want to sit there waiting for the commercials to end. But, when I tape HD shows, some of the commercials are also in HD (others are standard, lower resolution with black bars on either side), and often times I actually stop the DVR from forwarding and watch the HD commercials. So pretty. No words to describe... They should have sent a poet.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Mr Brooks
STOP! SPOILERS BE HERE!
The following is a bit of a review of "Mr Brooks", a film I saw last night. The reason that most of it is not yet visible is because simply by saying whether or not I liked it, I'm liable to give away much of the plot. So, you've been warned.
"Mr Brooks" SPOILERS FOLLOW
-------------------------------------------
First things first: I liked the movie. Although the plot twists weren't huge, and there were a dozen stories being told and Dane Cook was in it, I liked the movie. That's of course not surprising, considering that in the end the killer gets away with it and Dane Cook's character is six feet under. Literally! I like that. I don't want all movies to be morality tales. I don't need to learn a lesson every time I go to the movies. The bad guy is allowed to win. It's OK. And of course any time an annoying asshole like Dane Cook gets killed, I'm happy.
That being said, the movie does have faults. First, there are too many stories being told: everyone has a story and none of them are explored entirely. Earl's daughter is one of the main characters, in terms of impact, but barely anything is mentioned about her motivations or feelings. Why did she kill that guy? Give me more details! Considering the importance she has to the plot, it's very odd that the entire subplot of Mr Brooks committing a look-alike murder is shown in the span of a minute, mostly as he's traveling to and from the airport. Did Jane kill the father of her baby because he refused to even acknowledge the child? Or does she actually have the mental "condition" of her father?
Second, too many characters. We get introduced to a number of characters who have a total of 30 seconds on-screen time. Atwood's father is mentioned in a bit of detail but nothing ends up happening in the end. For obvious reasons, sure, but it's still a valid point.
Lets return to the highlights, though. I'm a little wired right now and my brain is a bit jumpy, I apologize for the inconvenience.
Mr Brooks is one evil badass. He is already in my Top 10 list of Evil Fictional Characters. BTW, that list is populated by the likes of Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Verbal Kint, God and Hans Gruber. Marshall is superbly played by William Hurt. One of his better performances, I think. That, and his role in "Dark City".
The film has very few glaringly obvious plot holes, at this point. I usually spend a few days analyzing a film after watching it, but so far I haven't hit on anything serious. Not like "Fracture", which oozed with bad plot and mistakes. Right now, the only thing I can think of as being wrong was said by Mr Brooks: he mentioned that because Dane Cook's character peed himself in the victim's house, the police will be able to track him down by DNA. That's not accurate: urine is sterile and has no human cells in it to identify a suspect by, so unless the character was actually urinating blood, the police would still have nothing to go on. But, I didn't mention this mistake in the faults section. Why not? In all likelihood, Mr Brooks was lying. He needed a good reason to convince Dane Cook's character to kill him, and a threat of jail or even the death penalty is a very good reason. This threat is only effective if the police actually have a way to link Dane Cook's character to the murders. Mr Brooks is smart enough to know that urine wouldn't be that link, but who knows about the man with the weak-bladder?
Finally, and this is something I discovered after watching the film, it's apparently the first of a trilogy. I'm happy to hear that. There is still so much to find out about Earl and Marshall. And Jane. And her baby. I just hope that the sequels don't take too long. I'm not that patient.
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Saturday, May 26, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Microsoft atheists are at it again
The 'Atheists at MS' alias is planning a movie night. Some of the suggestions are "The God Who Wasn't There" and "Happy Feet"):
…or “Jesus Camp” if you’re in the mood for a horror flick.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
'The Office'
There'll be more about 'The Office' in a later post, when I've stopped laughing, but in the mean time:
[Ryan and Kelly are arguing loudly, Toby can't do any work because of this. Michael walks in.]
Michael: Toby, come on, let's go.
Toby: Where?
Michael: Where? I'm gonna smack you in the head with a hammer. Come on, let's go.
[Toby takes a look at Ryan and Kelly.]
Toby: Alright.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Another one?
Yup, I'm afraid this is going to be yet another religion rant. YARR, a feature so common here, I should change the name of the blog to a more appropriate name, something along the lines of 'Shun the Believer'. Or whatever. ...anyhow.
Just on the heels of my last rant about a large number (unchecked statistics, BTW) of Christians who believe they will ascend the heavens sometime this year, Taty sends me this curious number. This is from PostSecret.
So, where do we start with this mental giant? Well, first of all, I'd just like to meet them and start a discussion comparing Jesus and Harry. I contend that, between these two fictional characters, Harry is definitely cooler. And he's got more tricks up his sleeve. I mean, Harry survived some forbidden curse (I haven't read the books), while Jesus couldn't even handle a simple crucifixion. What a wimp.
I was going to write here that religion is a form of brainwashing, but it's not. Not in the specific definition of brainwashing as "any systematic effort aimed at instilling certain attitudes and beliefs in a person against his will, usually beliefs in conflict with his prior beliefs and knowledge." That's not entirely true. While religion can be defined as brainwashing, that definition applies to instances when one particular religion replaces another. Usually that's not the case. Religion is most often presented to people early on in life, when they are still children and can't comprehend entirely what happens on Sundays and what's up with that strange water. Hell, I'm 23 and I still don't entirely understand. But that's not the point: children aren't being brainwashed, there's nothing there to overwrite. They are blank slates and the parents feel fully justified in filling their heads with irrelevant, illogical, emotionally stunting and dangerous crap.
But that's for a different blog, one where I mention the poor ticket usher at the theater where they were playing 'The Nativity Story'. More about that later.
Seriously, I'd like to meet this person just so that I can address a few issues with their secret:
- Are you sure this is going to be a problem? Maybe you're not as good as you think you are, or your Church sings the hymns in the wrong order, or the rapture happens in that small period after you sneezed and before you asked to be forgiven, and you get to stay here with me. If that's the case, wait around and read the book when it's eventually published by the heathens.
- Won't the book be available in Heaven?
- If you believe the same things as J. K. Rowling and you happen to win the cosmic lotto (1 out of the millions of variations), you'll meet up in Heaven and she can tell you that Snape is actually a good guy. And you were worried.
- Your eternal soul is at risk and all you can think is some dinky magic school? Your priest (or whatever) didn't do a very good job. Come to think of it, Harry seems more important to you than Jesus, so you're not getting into Heaven. Cheer up, you get to read about Ron finally knocking up Hermione.
That's about it, I think. Night.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Wedding nightmare
Some people have nightmares about being chased or falling or something equally exciting. I have nightmares about weddings. Specifically, I had a nightmare about being invited to Moen's wedding and not being able to find a good present. Here's a bullet-list of everything that is wrong with that:
- I haven't spoken to Moen in more than a year, where the hell did that memory come from?!
- I don't think he's getting married any time soon, seeing how he's in the Marines and will be shipping out in a few months.
- I know I have trouble (really!) picking out gifts, but having a nightmare about the whole thing is just ridiculous!
- My name is Pavel and... I am a bullet-list addict.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Rapture
Last night I was watching 'Real Time with Bill Maher' (Friday's show) and during the last New Rule he mentioned a curious statistic: 29% of the country still supports Bush and, maybe on a somewhat related note, 25% of the country believes that the rapture will happen this year. Bill went on to speculate that these are the same people who go on blind faith in the bible and in George W. I'm not going to comment on that, lets focus instead on the quarter of the population that doesn't expect to see 2008 roll around.
Excellent, finally a large number of religious people make a refutable statement! It doesn't happen often, and I for one am incredibly happy at this. I’m happy at the fact that they stated this. I’m happy at the fact that 75 million Americans (based on 300 million Americans estimate as of 2007) pushed their beliefs off a cliff in the vain hope of seeing them fly. Guess what, ain't happening!
So, what do we do with this little bit of information? I have a few ideas. Feel free to append your own.
- Call up a few of the 75 million people at 4am on January 2, 2008. If they answer, say "You're not supposed to be there!" Hang up and call again the next day. Keep this up for a while.
- Move all 75 million out of their houses, replacing them with poor and homeless people. "You're not going to be around here much longer, be a good Christian and help out a worthy cause."
- On January 2, 2008, go to the houses of some of the 75 million people and ask them if they're still going to attend church and donate money. Get them to spend the same amount of time/money (that they spent at Church) on humanitarian purposes. In a week, poverty is wiped out in America. In a month, the world.
Also, on the note of the rapture, there is a rapture website that works on a dead-man switch: if the operator of the site doesn't re in more than a day (or something) it is assumed that the rapture took place. At this time the server sends out emails that Christians have added to the database, a few words for their left-behind friends. There's fun to be had with this particular set up, I'm sure you see.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Hot Chai
Hot Chai
While the original story of GTA: San Andreas' 'Hot Coffee' modification is now close to two years old, the announcement of the new GTA title has resurrected the controversy surrounding the franchise. ('Hot Coffee' is the name of a modification which allowed players to unlock game code that the developer has disabled from the final game but that still remains in the code.)
A month ago, the first trailer for GTA: IV was unveiled, giving a glimpse into the next game in the series and cause for alarm from its opponents. Jack Thompson, a controversial attorney who has filed a number of lawsuits against Rockstar Games, the company that owns the GTA franchise, has made numerous comments concerning the content of the game, which he believes will be ever more damaging to young players than any of the previous games. As support of his claims, Thompson produced evidence in the form of the game's original source code, for which he refuses to provide sources, that includes "vulgar and suggestive comments and ... sexually explicit variable declarations".
Rockstar has refused to comment on the content of the upcoming game, but has addressed Thompson's evidence, stating:
Where did you get that? Were you the one who set off smoke bombs in our building and tried to hang from the ceiling with climbing ropes like in that stupid 'Mission Impossible' movie? And come on, it's just comments, that stuff doesn't make it into the finished binaries! Oh, and those 'sexually explicit variable declarations'? You can't write 'UnauthorizedAccessException' without 'sEx', you dimwit!Rockstar's response continues on for a number of pages, attacking Jack Thompson on a number of technical points and suggests more than once that Thompson may not have received enough 'love' when he was younger.
US Senator Hillary Clinton, who sided with Thompson during the 'Hot Coffee' scandal, has distanced herself from the controversial attorney, citing Thompson's lack of factual evidence and his poor ethics, adding:
I want to appear to be more conservative than I really am in order to get more red state votes, sure, but that raving lunatic is pulling stuff out of his ass now. Not even someone like a misinformed NASCAR fan would believe the crap this nutjob is spewing. Whoops, did I say that? I mean... I support family values. Abortion is wrong. A gun and a Bible in every household!
Thompson was unavailable for comments.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Pride and Prejudice
'Pride and Prejudice' was on last night, and I watched about 3 minutes of it. It's a difficult task, you see, to follow any work of Jane Austen's, but this particular version held my attention for a whole 3 minutes! How is this accomplished, you ask? Three reasons: Keira Knightley, Donald Sutherland and Rosamund Pike. While watching, I realized, finally, why it is that this movie and other similar films bother me: it's a movie about a bunch of gardeners. I don't mean 'gardener' in quite the literal sense, just a metaphor, of sorts: these are people who spend their lives tending to and pruning the family tree. True, it's a fairly lame metaphor, but I don't have anything else. It's true, however, since the entire film focuses on the painfully vain motivations of the main characters to marry, or have their children marry, just the right person. The entire story is about planning weddings. I'd rather watch paint dry!
Maggie
Maggie
Originally uploaded by FuzzyGamer.
Maggie, complete with a haircut and one my chairs under her, sits in my office and barks. Sometimes. Other times she runs around and look in nooks and crannies.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Work, the pool, 'Fracture' and McCormick & Schmick's
Today was a successful day which first started with me not waking up at 1 pm. It then got better by me resolving 2/3 of my bugs. Yay.
After much time-wasting in meetings and so on, I finally had a chance to go for a swim. Finally, because I missed going yesterday. That whole waking-up-at-1pm-thing really screws you up, you know.
Now, there are a number of swimmers at the pool. I will attempt to define those classes in a nice bullet-list.
- Splashers - these are people who, for one reason or another, feel the need to splash water 3 lanes in each direction. Maybe it's something about marking their territory. Or they're trying to prove that while the rest of us are at the pool to waste time, they are the true practitioners, and as such exhibit outmost contempt for the common man, demonstrating it by unceasing water-shows.
- Freakin' bullets - these people traverse the length of the pool in the blink of an eye, leaving the chums in their wake, to sink or swim in the resulting tidal waves. These people are sometimes splashers, particularly at either end of the lane, switching directions by propelling their hairless bodies out of the water and splashing down not unlike a nuclear submarine from 'The Hunt for Red October'.
- Damn slow pokes - these people are trying out for the Olympics. The sloth Olympics, I think. I manage to swim 8 laps in the time it takes this gold-medalist to complete even one. I think they're paddling really slow in place, only moving forward for a lack of options. And I certainly don't know what they're trying to accomplish.
- The busy assholes - these people don't stop. Ever. Not even for you to politely ask them if they will mind sharing a lane. I think they've been in the pool since last November, doing laps and not caring what in the hell is going on around. Yes, ignorance is bliss, but acknowledge the outside world once in a while, if only not to come crashing head-first into a fellow swimmer. These are often splashers and sometimes bullets. Be weary of the busy asshole: sharing a lane with them is an exercise in patience and self-restraint. When they're not busy overtaking you or stirring up tidal waves at the ends of the pool, they are hogging most of the lane. Sort of hard to see where you are when your head is in the water 80% of the time.
- The twitching idiots - these mental giants have deduced that the proper swimming form is one resembling a car-crash victim: their limbs can often be seen at impossible angles and their arms seem to be locked in at 90 degrees. The stranger the body looks during a swim, the better. These are often times splashers. Seriously, how would they not be with all those arms flying everywhere?
- The talkers - this illusive creatures appear in pairs, normally. These are people who occupy the same lane but are rarely seen actually using it. They are found at the ends, standing around and talking. I am not sure what about, I try not to stick around, but it's apparently very interesting and can only be discussed in the pool. They do not possess particularly annoying swimming traits, as they almost never swim. One begins to wonder if they even know how...
This was the first movie I've seen in quite a while. It's a fairly curious thriller. Ryan Gosling plays a young hotshot assistant district attorney, trying to convict Anthony Hopkins' character of attempted murder. See, Hopkins shot his wife in the head (she's alive but in a coma) and now it's up to Gosling to build a case from what seems to be a fairly straight-forward matter. Rosamund Pike stars as Gosling's soon-to-be boss and lover. While her performance can be missed if you were to blink, she's delightful and is one of the reasons I decided to see this film. That, and it fit my schedule, but moving on. A film about weak-points has quite a few of its own, but that's probably just my perception. That and the fact that I've watched one too many CSI-type shows: the surprises were largely predictable and I noticed the major plot point at the first moment it appeared, close to an hour before the rest of the characters catch on. In this respect, the film is very much like 'Manchurian Candidate': while great on its own, there's not much new that I didn't see in the trailer, infer on my own before ever going to the theater or see from a mile away as a plot point.
Afterwards I made my way to McCormick & Schmick's, a seafood restaurant in the same building as the movie theater (Lincoln Square). This place is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I have been there twice (for dinner) and was very satisfied both times, equally by the presentation, the quality of the food and the service. Of course, I do end up spending a minimum of 50$ every time I'm there, but it's worth it. Having tried the oyster sampler last time, today I focused on the Kusshi Oysters (Deep Bay, British Columbia). These are a smaller, but sweeter, oyster variety that is pure heaven on the half-shell. For the entrée I had Wahoo (Kona Coast, Hawaii), "Oven Roasted with Penn Cove Mussels in a Red Curry Sauce". A hard and somewhat stringy fish on rice, with breath-taking curry and mussels. Just "wow". Can't say anything else. For dessert, I once again went with the upside-down apple pie with ice cream. The whole thing is served on a plate decorated with fine flour and caramel dribbled liberally. Yum!
McCormick & Schmick's is quickly becoming a favorite of mine and I am determined to celebrate every big, and little, achievement there. But no more often than once every two weeks. Not the fact that it's semi-expensive. It's certainly not because of their dish sizes: it's not a lot of food, that's why I am able to try an appetizer and a desert in addition to the entrée. The reasoning here is that this is something of a special place and I'm going to keep it that way.
This blabbering post is brought to you by the soundtrack for "Eyes Wide Shut", a gorgeous arrangement of mostly instrumental music.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
This Atheist's Wager
There's a concept called Pascal's Wager. The basic idea is this: it is safer to believe in God than not believing and risking the possibility of ending up in hell. It's simple, really:
- If you believe in God and if you're right, you go to heaven
- If you believe in God, nothing happens if you're wrong
- If you don't believe in God and you're right, once again nothing happens
- If you don't believe in God and you're wrong, you end up burning in hell for all of eternity
Some have responded to Pascal's wager with the so-called Atheist's Wager, which can be stated in the following format: “You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in God. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent God, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him.” At least, that's what the Wikipedia says, and we all know that you can't argue with the Wikipedia.
I'm also writing this post as a semi-response to a post on the blog I found through the Atheists mailing list at work. The author suggests a curious position, one of anger at the Christian God and the Atheist as a soldier for humanity. Of course, this is a bit of a contradiction of terms for me, as I just don't see us Atheists forming an army against someone's imaginary friend.
Anyhow, covering the basics of Pascal's and Atheist's Wagers, we move on to my wager: This Atheist's Wager, Or, The Scientific Atheist's Wager.
I am a scientific atheist. What does this mean? I approach the question of religion from a scientific view point. I admit that there is a possibility of God's existence. It's possible that we have souls, are judged on our actions and thoughts, and are destined to end up either in Heaven or Hell based on the aforementioned. Now, now, settle down. You, stop hooting! You haven't won. All these possibilities I admit, openly. Which is something that the opposition will never do, of course. I come forward with this because, as a scientist, I know that it isn't easy to prove that something does not exist. So, I must admit that all of this is a possibility. However, having said that, I must expand these statements: the possibilities, while non-zero, are pretty damn close to zero. Existence of God is just as likely as gravity completely disappearing at noon tomorrow. It's possible. It might happen. At this point, science has no way of saying that it can't happen. But that's a hell of a long way from saying “it will” or “there's a God”.
So, for the time being, I'm filing the question of God in the same drawer as the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause: some people believe in them, I guess I grew out of it. You will too, someday. Eh, maybe not. Well, maybe your children's children's children. Or whatever.
Consider this quote: “Atheism is a faith like not collecting stamps is a hobby.” I think that this quote is true, to the point, and may help others see religion in the same light as I see it. Religion is just a “hobby”, an activity that some people partake in. It can bring them happiness, give them purpose in life, all those things that a hobby may do. But it's not an essential part of life. A person can live their whole life without collecting stamps, or without even thinking about collecting stamps, and be perfectly happy. I do not think about God or religion during the course of my life. Sure, I can get pretty steamed up about it when reading yet another case of ignorance and injustice in the name of the Lord, but on my own, religion is not a part of my life. Equally, I can sit here and worry about gravity turning off tomorrow at noon, but what's the point? It's not something that is likely to be true.
The problem with Pascal's Wager, one of many, is the large number of assumptions that have to be made:
- There is a God
- I have a soul
- There is an afterlife
- The afterlife is binary: you either end up in Heaven or Hell
- Heaven is a good place to be, Hell is a bad place to be
- God deems where you will go based on your belief in Him
- Gravity will turn off at noon tomorrow
We can call this the Non-Floater's Wager. The Non-Floater's Wager states that it is safer to stay home tomorrow than not to:
- If you stay home and are wrong, nothing happens
- If you were right and stayed home, you get to live (a little bit longer)
- If you didn't stay home and you were right, nothing happens
- If you were wrong and went for a jog, you'll be enjoying jogging past the Moon, provided that you can hold your breath for that long
Ooh, wait, I just got an idea: come up with a crazy and impossible situation for which there is a favorable way to act and a non-favorable way to act. It's the ultimate excuse! “Sorry that I couldn't make it to the meeting, boss. Well, see, I believe that if I came into the office on time, the sun would have exploded. So, to be on the safe side, I stayed at home. Quite logical, right? I mean, you told me yourself that you believe in God 'just to be on the safe side', and this is exactly like that.”
So, after that bumpy ride through the Central Park of my strange psyche we come to the almost-irrelevant point of this blog post: This Atheist's Wager, Or, The Scientific Atheist's Wager.
“It is safer not to base one's life on illogical rules and standards. It is safer to reject the old rituals that fail the 'is this logical?' test. It is safer to not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. It is safer to lead your life based on reason and the Golden Rule than based on old traditions and a fear/reward-based system of rules.”
Final thoughts:
- I love these bullet lists
- Check out that blog I linked to in the opening paragraphs
- Take a look at Robert A. Heinlein's “Job: A Comedy of Justice”. It's great satire and a good attack on the 'concept' of the Christian God.
- What do you suppose the chances are of me staying home tomorrow for fear of floating into interstellar space?
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Funny quotables
It was already 1100 and what had he achieved today? Nothing, so far as he could tell, except to learn that the Navy's motto seemed to be "Hurry up and wait."- Singularity Sky
Accelerating to speeds faster than light was, of course, impossible. General relativity had made that clear enough back in the twentieth century. However, since then a number of ways of circumventing the speed limit had turned up; by now, there were at least six different known methods of moving mass or information from A to B without going through c.- Singularity Sky
She grinned, and her expression unnerved Martin: white teeth, red lips, and something about her manner that reminded him of home, where women weren't just well-bred ornaments for the family tree.- Singularity Sky
[After the Singularity, the following message appeared on every human-inhabited planet.]
I am the Eschaton. I am not your god.
I am descended from you, and I exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic cone. Or else.
...
"[Explains the planned maneuver of going far into the future, getting the information on the enemy, then jumping to before the first strike to surprise the opponent.] With me so far? But the real problem is God. They're planning on breaking the Third Commandment."
Boursy crossed himself and looked puzzled. "What, disrespecting the holy father and mother? My family-"
"No, the one that says thou shalt not fuck with history or else, signed Yours Truly, God. That Third Commandment, the one burned into Thanksgiving Rock in letters six feet deep and thirty feet high. Got it?"- Singularity Sky
God loves atheists because they do the right thing without being scared into it.- Fai, said to have quoted from another source
Friday, April 13, 2007
Minor annoyances
First things first: Blogger crashed when I tried to save my last blog post. It lost it. Damn machine! It wasn't a particularly good post, but I'm still upset. First real post I've started writing in a little while and it gets lost. Bah!
Second: people who find this blog through Google, based on their particular interest at the moment, and leave a comment that's little more than a plug for their own blog. I'm not pissed off at you guys. I'm not gonna "ban" you, if that's even possible. I'm just irked that people use this spot as free advertisement. Yes, I understand, you were providing additional information on the subject, unlike those other guys who really are advertising. Whatever. I'm not saying I have a solution. If I did, I probably wouldn't be here babbling. As it stands, I'm just slightly irritated. Go ahead, link, just keep it tasteful. I mean, don't just "comment" with a link. Too obvious.
Third: Heinlein. I recently finished his novel 'Number of the Beast' and I gotta say that this is, without hyperbole, the worst Heinlein work I have ever read.
Rather than write my own biting review, I refer you to this 1981 review. It pretty much describes, in much richer language, my thoughts on the novel.
Overall, it's very similar to the rest of Heinlein's later novels:
- All books start with a fairly interesting premise, spend the first two acts in pointless bickering/flattering/flirting/arguing that results in absolutely no progress
- This is then followed by the third act, one with which the author could have started the book, as the first two acts are completely irrelevant at this point (think of 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn': Jim was free for most of the 'escape')
- The characters are simplistic, two-dimensional, two-sided entities. Men are described as all-capable gods, being the 'best pilot' and the 'world's best mathematician'. The women are oversexed creatures who are endlessly focused on their breasts and 'know when to shut up'. Heinlein makes it hard not to concentrate your full attention on his sexism, at times. Two-sided, because the sweet prince will magically turn into the evil villain at the author's whim, going from a loving and supportive husband to a pig-headed and tyrannical idiot. OK, so maybe those two aren't exclusive, but the character changes are quite abrupt.
- The third act! The story goes from being a quaint adventure of the multi-dimensional refugees and their endless bickering for the irrelevant captain's chair to being a damn fairy tale, obviously needing to include Lazarus Long and his extended family in an absurd plot-line. Heinlein is notorious for these, a perfectly acceptable story breaks apart at the end by turning into something akin to a fairy tale. Argh!
Fourth: House. The blog post I was writing was about Tuesday's episode of House. If you don't want the secret spoiled, stop reading.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
-------------------------
OK, that's better. This week's episode may be seen as jumping the shark: House at 30,000 feet! Yes, our favorite misanthrope has to save a plane-load of puking patients. Except that it's not. I liked the twist about mass hysteria, but the Korean guy's "illness" wasn't a particularly good one. Ooh, look, he did something stupid and now he's suffering from decompression sickness. Yay. Most of the plane scenes were hilarious, but the medicine was boring.
Back on the ground, the team has to go a whole episode without House's coaching. In fact, without speaking to House at all. Another 'first' for the series. OK, so, the opening with the uber-hot prostitute was funny and gave a false impression of a great episode to follow. But, after that, nothing. The science was boring, the solution doubly so. Did anyone else notice that we've already seen this damn case on CSI? Same story, one guy's house is getting fumigated and his neighbor gets sick because of connecting pipes. And what was up with that pipe not properly ending, just opening up into the basement?
Chase and Cameron bugged me by throwing their sex-buddies 'relationship' in our faces at every possible moment, joking around like they're a couple of over-sexed undergrads, finding freedom for the first time. I felt that this was incredibly out of character for both of them. Foreman tried to keep a handle on things, so I applaud him. And I really appreciate the fact that both Chase and Cameron stepped forward and expressed their feelings. I'm certainly delighted to hear Cameron ending the affair instead of continuing to lead Chase on. If you saw last week's episode, you know that Chase was falling head over heels for Allison. I'm happy that it's over, less pain in the end.
I think that's about it for this episode. Oh, and the dead cat was so obviously fake, it's not even funny.
-------------------------
SPOILERS END
Hmm, what else is annoying me? Work, I guess. There's just too damn much. They sort of 'resolved' that issue by moving a few of my bugs to a different dev, but now he's unofficially pushing them back to me.
I keep on telling myself that I'll take a day off this week, or this weekend, won't work and will go watch a movie in the movie theater, but it ain't happening. I still end up dragging my ass into work on Saturday and Sunday. I contemplated taking some time off tomorrow, but there's stuff I need to finish ASAP, so that's probably not happening. And there are a number of movies I want to see, too! Like '300' (homo-eroticism and brutal violence, yay!), 'TMNT' (dude, the name says it all), 'Gridnhouse' (a girl with a machine gun for a leg, no way am I missing that!), 'Breach' (come on, spy movies are awesome), 'Amazing Grace' (what can I say, Mister Fantastic as a British abolitionist is just damn sexy).
I think that's about all for right now. Night.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Here's to you Mrs. Robinson
The other day I was listening to Simon And Garfunkel "Mrs. Robinson" and, for obvious reasons, it reminded me of "The Graduate". A pretty good movie, I must say. But, thinking about it more, I realized something: that movie is so much like my life, it's scary. I'm Mrs. Robinson!
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Random ramblings
An excerpt from a conversation.
Q. why is the sky up?
A. the sky is up because there is nothing there. consider a scenario: you look toward the horizon and see a mountain. if the mountain wasn't there, you would be seeing black space at night and blue during the day, the blue being the light from the sun being diffracted through the atmosphere, thus giving us a blue "sky". if the mountain was taller, we would see less "sky". if there is a cloud directly above you, stretching for miles, you could only see the sky on the sides, toward the horizon. if this was a perpetual state, the question would be "why is the sky around?". so, the sky is not a real object, but rather the lack of objects between the observer and the furthest visible point. due to pollution, light diffraction, interstellar particles and low sensitivity of the unaided human eye, the "sky" appears during the day and seemingly blocks out most objects that are outside earth's atmosphere, with the exception of the sun, the moon and some bright stars/planets. back to the question at hand, the sky is up because there are very few objects "up" to block the "sky". certainly there are more objects on the ground around us, and slightly rising, as may be the case in a crowded metropolis.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Atheists at MS: no lack of quotable material
Atheism is a faith like not collecting stamps is a hobby
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Argh!
Some people claim that there's such a thing as writer's block. I wouldn't know. However, I seem to be experiencing blogger's block. Which is a very common condition. It usually sets in after a week or two, after a new blogger's first forays onto the blog scene. They've tried this whole blogging thing out, posted the usual my-life-sucks-but-now-it's-awesome-oh-look-at-this-funny-picture-my-aunt-sent-me entries and gotten bored by the entire thing. Me, I'm not like that. I actually had a good thing going with my blog. I posted fairly often, sometimes with the help of my Treo. Once I started working at Microsoft, my post frequency actually increased. Some days I'd write as many as 3 posts. Then, insurmountable amounts of bugs and features and blah blah blah came along. Work is tiring. So, my blogging slowed down. This also coincided with the fact that my Treo's mail program decided to wig out on me, robbing me of that great ability to snap-and-email my blog posts. So, my blogging slowed down yet again. Then, more work. And yet more work. Did I mention there was more work? I did? Oh, OK. Good. I didn't want to make it seem like I didn't have enough work to do.
I just can't seem to find the time to blog. And when I do, I can't put into words what I'm thinking. I've got these ideas, stuff about Easter, funny stuff happening at work, arguments about torture, etc., but I'd rather read Heinlein (which is yet another topic I want to cover) than sit here and type up paragraphs after paragraphs. So, maybe I'll write about this blogger's block and the stuff I haven't had time to write about.
An artist in NY made a full-scale statue of Jesus, right in time for Easter. The statue is made of chocolate. So, unsurprisingly, a bunch of Catholics got pissed off, organized themselves into a frenzy and boycotted the exhibit, showering the hosting hotel with letters, e-mails and phone calls. The hotel pulled the plug. Sigh. What the story doesn't mention is the "why". Why did the artist make this statue? Was the chocolate Jesus simply a logical progression from the already-illogical combination of Jesus' resurrection and chocolate eggs left behind by a magic bunny? If so, I applaud. It's poignant. And probably tasty. Second, why are Catholics so pissed off? As some people on the "Atheists at Microsoft" mailing list commented, how is chocolate different from wood, metal, plastic, etc.? Are the Catholics upset because of the theory I suggested, that the statue is simply the result of a logical progression?
The article also had a very curious phrase, said by one of the Catholics opponents in his description of the statue: "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever". Isn't this an oxymoron? "Christian sensibilities"? If Christians were sensible, they'd be atheists. And, still focusing on this particular quote, I wonder what was the "worst assault". Was it "Dogma"? Maybe "The Last Temptation of Christ"? I bring up movies because they are more widely seen and known. Ooh, wait, I got it, maybe it was Sinead O'Connor's curious appearance on SNL? As I've said before and will say again, making "zealots" angry is like shooting fish in a barrel. People who believe so strongly in something and refuse to even consider the possibility of being wrong are just too easy to piss off. Consider the above-mentioned examples, Muhammad cartoons, Salman Rushdie. Also, and this is only for the daring, try arguing a person's long-ingrained beliefs. That should be fun.
That's all I can do for now. Be thankful that I'm actually going through with the post. Pushing that damn 'Publish' button is pretty hard, actually. Particularly if the post is not up to my liking. Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll write up a blog entry about Heinlein and Settlers of Catan (two different topics).
Friday, March 16, 2007
An exercise in futility?
This is a bit of a stretch in hypotheticals, but what the hell. Actually, I think there's a point in there somewhere, but it's not very important. Anyhow.
Scenario: in 50 years scientists discover a way to extend the average life span to 500 years. That is, barring the usual causes of death such as falling off a cliff or confusing a "High Voltage" sign for "Men's Room". And I'm not sure how they can know that it's 500 years, given that no one at this point has lived that long, but that little tid-bit is folded into the hypothetical nature of this exercise. So, people can live to be 500 years old, on average, if they go through some complicated procedure.
Of course, this will have an indescribable impact on our society. I can sit here all day imagining the effects of this miracle, but I just don't have that kind of time. So, I'm going to focus on a very specific example: prison sentences.
Imagine a murderer who is sentenced today to 200 years in prison. He killed four people from three separate families. In 50 years, the scientists make the discovery of (relative) longevity. Here's the tricky part: the man is in prison, still alive. If he can stay alive for 150 years, he'll be free! Do we allow him to go through the life-extending procedure? On what grounds can we keep it away from him? Is it because the judge decided that while the murderer deserves to die in prison, to illustrate the sever nature of the crime he specified an obscenely long prison term? Do the families of the victims have a say in this? Since the murderer is serving out a specific number of years, to punish him they might try to block the procedure. What if he was serving a life term? Do the families have a valid case, for the same reason of "I meant he should die in prison", to force the state's hand in performing the scientific procedure despite the man's wishes? What if some victims' families want vengeance and others have learned forgiveness? How about if there are no living family members? Does the state pursue the "meaning" of law and not the specific wording? In the same example as above, what happens if the sentence isn't 200 years but life? How about looking a bit further into the future: this breakthrough suggests that in future methods will be discovered to extend human life even further. Can the families of the victims legally keep a murderer alive for an infinite time? If today we can extend life span to 500 years, immortality is just around the corner.
This is the kind of thing I consider while doing laps in the pool. There's not much else to do and I've noticed that I actually swim faster if I can focus on something external, be it the book I'm reading, a specific problem at work or an all-too-strange idea I'm kicking around.
Oh, and, almost as an afterthought, here's the irrelevant point in all of this. Of course, the ultimate point is the intellectual exercise, but, as is often the case, I like to finish a blog entry by concluding that something about the world around us is just plain stupid.
It really puzzles when I hear a person being sentenced to 100 years in prison or four life sentences. What kind of logic went into that decision? If you're contemplating a prison sentence longer than 50 to 70 years (depending on the person), simply give them life. Similarly, why bother with multiple life sentences? Unless you believe in reincarnation and are willing to imprison the worm or the pig that the criminal has become, multiple life sentences are idiotic.
For those who actually see something interesting in this exercise, you can read up on the following subjects:
- The Singularity - the idea born out of science fiction, but now rearing its ugly or beautiful head into the world around us. The concept is that of exponentially accelerating technological innovations and the inconceivable future that follows.
- Doomsday Argument - a lovely concept I stumbled upon while researching a paper in college, the Doomsday Argument uses the population statistics to determine the likely life-span of humanity.
- Jonathan Pollard, link and link - this is a case of a spy who was sentenced to life for a crime that, in other cases, warranted a sentence of usually under 10 years. Take a look at the second link which compares sentences of US spies and whether the espionage was carried out for an Ally or an Enemy. Of the convicted spies only 3, other than Pollard, received life sentences, and each of them spied for an Enemy state, while Pollard was working with an American Ally.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
CSI-ence
"CSI" is great: a whodunit mystery, an almost-always satisfactory conclusion, lots of educational tid-bits about how to commit the perfect crime, etc. But there are enough downfalls in the shows to make me want to stop watching. If only it weren't for the story arcs. Hmm.
"CSI", and it's spin-offs, are far from perfect. The original "CSI" is boring: it's in Vegas, everything is about gambling, prostitution, blah blah blah. Give me something original. "CSI: Miami" does that, but the cast is horrific: Horatio is just plain strange and I think that they hired high school drop-outs for the rest because the acting is sophomoric, ranging wooden performances to over-the-top hotshot. "CSI: NY" is my favorite at the moment. New York is a wonderful place for a cop drama: the personality of the city gives the show all the strangeness of Vegas while keeping it grounded enough not to veer off to the classic "furry convention" of the original. But all is not perfect with "NY": the characters aren't as good as "CSI". Oh, they're more interesting and dimensional than Miami, but that's not saying much. Gary Sinise is deliciously subtle as lead detective, but passionate about his job when the situation warrants it. I'm really surprised that "NY" is the only show of the three that hasn't been nominated for an Emmy.
The rest of the shows' more glaring faults aside, I have a problem with the science they present every week. Here are some curious mistakes I've noticed in the last two episodes of "CSI: NY":
- Gary Sinise' character actually suggested that the victim got into a locked apartment by using a credit card. On a deadbolt.
- A dead woman was shown to bleed. Dead people don't bleed!
- An actor shoots someone at point-blank range with a blank gun and is surprised at the outcome.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Christians are wimps
Well, Christians and a bunch of other religious goobers. Basically any group that has to make arbitrary rules like "no sex until marriage", "no alcohol", "no dancing", or anything else that their deity has forbidden.
God doesn't want you to do X. OK. He tells you not to do it. But that's not enough: he says that if you do it, you'll suffer damnation. That's still not enough, so he makes his minions pound that concept into your head once a week, at least. Still, this is somehow not enough: people enforce laws that will punish you in this lifetime, in addition to God's punishment in the next life.
I'm not sure if this approach says more about the religion or the people following the religion. You claim that people must prove their faith to God by abstaining from X, and then you go ahead and make it entirely too easy. And yet people still do it, they still commit the "sin" of X. Does that mean that the ideas you're pushing are such garbage that no one in the right frame of mind would follow along without all of this intervention?
If you want people to really prove their faith in God, toss a Christian teenager into the Playboy mansion: if he manages to stay "pure" and convert more than half the guests to Christianity, he gets into Heaven. That should be fun. And it will really test his faith.
This is related to my previous blog entry, specifically, the part where I say:
If the thought of eternal damnation isn't keeping young Romeo and Juliet from knocking boots, the threat of cancer in 40 years is a very weak scare-tactic.
Seriously, if after all the prodding and lecturing, day in and day out, a person is still willing to be damned for all eternity, maybe you're trying to pound a square peg into a triangular hole. It'll go in, sure, but is that what you really want?
This applies to a vast variety of religions, but goes double for those groups that have taken it to the next level: we're really up the creek when the idea moves away from Sunday-morning preaching into nation-wide law. Is your religion so illogical and completely against human nature that you have to put your arbitrary rules into law? I consider this final move the ultimate failure of religion: when God depends on laws of man to uphold His rules, what kind of followers are you left with? Man's reason for following the path set by God is no longer faith, but fear of earthly punishment.
Do you really need millions upon millions of brainwashed "individuals" to be a part of your religion? Does that make your life seem less-wasted? Does it vindicate your choice in religion?
PS: Was it really a choice? Or was it the fact that your parents/family/friends subscribe to the same delusions?
Friday, March 09, 2007
Maggie
Maggie
Originally uploaded by FuzzyGamer.
She's not snarling, just an awkward angle. On the left is a bit of snack that Brian keeps in his office, specifically for Maggie.
Anil
Anil
Originally uploaded by FuzzyGamer.
He doesn't usually laugh like this, this is his picture-face.
Bryan
Bryan
Originally uploaded by FuzzyGamer.
The baby-sitter of our build machines. He once played basketball with Elton John.
View from 17
View from 17
Originally uploaded by FuzzyGamer.
This is the view from Bulding 17, Floor 3, right by Reed's office. I'm facing north-west.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Are you human?
Finally, Microsoft will help you answer that most important question. With, I might add, the help of kitty-cats.
Microsoft Research Presents: Asirra
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Bill Maher for March 2nd
This is the transcript of the final "New Rule" from the March 2nd episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" that I mentioned in a previous blog entry.
---
And finally, New Rule: If you don't think your daughter getting cancer is worse than your daughter having sex, you're doing it wrong. Last year, modern medicine came up with a way to greatly reduce cervical cancer in young women. It's a vaccine that can virtually wipe out the sexually-transmitted disease called HPV, which leads to the cancer.
But not everyone is pleased with this vaccine. There are Christian values groups and churches nationwide who are fighting it. Briget Maher – no relation–and none planned – formerly of the Family Research Council– says giving girls the vaccine is bad because– quote – "the girls may see it as a license to engage in pre-marital sex."
Hey, Mrs. Maher, let me tell you something. Your daughter is already on the Internet exchanging bondage fantasies with a German boy she met on MySpace. Forget HPV. She's on to S&M. And Mrs. Maher, I'm sure I don't have to tell you there's only one foolproof method to make a woman abstinent: marry her.
So, let's review here. HPV is a new STD that the CDC wants teens vaccinated for PDQ. And that's not sitting well with the Harper Valley PTA. They think if a teenage girl feels a little prick, she's going to want to feel a whole lot more.
But, HPV shots don't cause promiscuity. Tequila shots do. And MTV. And having moron parents you want to escape from. Hey, when you're 15 years old, breathing encourages sexual activity.
But, let's be frank. These values groups aren't just against the HPV shot. They're against family planning and condoms and morning-after pills. They want to make sure sex is as dangerous as possible, so that kids know if they sleep around and get an STD, that's God teaching them a lesson. And that lesson is: "You should never have tried out for 'American Idol' in the first place!"
Now, I know our kids are dumb. I just read it in a New Rule. But, will they really have sex with anything that moves just because they know there's a vaccine? People don't get the vaccine for typhoid and say, "Great, now I can drink the sewer water in Bombay!" It's like being against a cure for blindness because it'll encourage masturbation!
It's like being for the salmonella poisoning in peanut butter because it will discourage weirdos from spreading it on their ass and calling the dog!
If this is the nonsense you're teaching your kids, they're already screwed.
---
GTA: San Andreas
You've probably heard quite a bit about the Hot Coffee controversy surrounding GTA: San Andreas. If you haven't, here's a recap: while developing the game the developers half-coded a sex mini-game which does not make an appearance in the game, but is accessible if the user applies a third-party patch (on the PC) or uses cheat tools (on the console versions). This was dubbed Hot Coffee, relating it to the fact that were the mini-game present in the game, it would be played after one of CJ's girlfriends invited him in for "coffee". The discovery stirred up quite a lot of commotion, prompting a re-rating of the game from M (mature) to AO (adult only) and subsequent recall of the original versions of the game. Of course when dealing with moral panic of any sort the blood-suckers and the general scum of the earth popped their heads up: Republicans used the scandal to try and push freedom-suppressing laws and Democrats jumped on the issue to gain some moderate, family-oriented, "moral" votes their own way.
The curious thing is that no one who criticized the game actually played it. If they had, they would have found a virtual treasure-chest of offensive material with which to attack the gaming industry. Luckily, neither you nor they have to play the game to see just what I am talking about.
I went ahead and made a little compilation of some "questionable" acts of wanton destruction one can perform in the game. I did this in part to enjoy the game, once again, and in part to ask the question: why didn't anyone say anything?
Click expand to see the entire post.
Mission 1 - The Train Job
Scouting out
Tracking down
Highjacking
Accelerating
Almost there...
Going off the tracks
There, off in the distance, are the cars
The locomotive is in the tunnel, sadly
This is just me exploding some C4 packs. For poops and giggles.Mission 2 - The Tank Job
Taking the tank for a ride around the city
Running down a cop and several pedestrians
Actually using the huge cannon to explode a civillian car...
...and a cop car.
Mission 3 - The Helicopter Job
Getting in an Apache-like helicopter to viligante-ize
Tracking down criminals and blasting them with rockets or a Gatling gunMission 4 - Pedestrian Rampage
Attach sticky C4 packs to cops and detonate them, sending body parts flying
Mow down civilians with a minigun
Run down the slow ones with a motorcycle...
...and watch them fly.
Actually mow down people...
...and watch the grisly mess come out of the combine.
Finally, after much anticipation, the first pictures I took and the reason for this whole post, I bring to you "CJ's High-Skies Adventure".
There is a semi-hidden surprise in the San Fierro airport...
...your very own...
..."747".
Comes in a variety of colors!
Isn't she a beauty?
Taking off right over a residential area.
I've always loved the "Luxor" Pyramid of Las Venturas.
Coming up on a skyscraper in Los Santos...
...can you guess what's going to happen?
Yeah, you can actually do this in-game.
X
Hmm, seem to be missing the final shot. Oh well.So, we've seen:
... and all that the media could find to talk about is some badly animated sexually-suggestive motions?
Why do I bring this up? Why did I write a blog entry about something that I could have covered just as well a full year ago? Well, I haven't posted anything in a while and I haven't played San Andreas in a really long time, so this was a two-for-one deal.
That and the fact that recently I've seen video games come under more criticism and full-out attack, like the attempts in a number of states to pass violent games off as equal to pornography. While some might say that this blog entry illustrates the violence the laws mean to protect children from, my question is, as stated before, very simple: why didn't anyone mention this violence before? San Andreas has always been covered in the media as the have-sex-with-a-hooker-and-killer-her-afterwards game. Or the Hot Coffee game. I am making the point that the people who are screaming the loudest have no idea what they are screaming about. Sure, you can kill a hooker, but compared to everything else, that's a pretty tame way to spend your time in San Andreas. Did you know that you can actually play the role of a pimp in this game? That's just a side note. I didn't take any pictures of that, sorry.
Well, that's it for this entry, I guess. Good night.
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