Wednesday, August 03, 2005
I just thought I'd post a tune everyone can enjoy.
Mary Lou she got pregnant
And was addicted to fifteen drugs
She went down to the abortion clinic
And was accosted by right-wing thugs
(chorus)
Will the foetus be aborted
By and by, Lord, by and by
There's a better home awaitin'
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
Little Mary was just fourteen
And she was raped by her own dad
Danny Quayle said, "Have that baby!"
But another choice she had....
(chorus)
Annie's pregnancy would have killed her
The doctor's warning gave her strife
Fundamentalists said, "Have that baby!"
But she said, "I want my right to life!"
(chorus)
Bridgett had ten kids already
And an abortion is what she chose
The christians showed her a bloody foetus
She said "That's fine, I'll have one of those."
(chorus)
Tania lived for the revolution
Wanted to overthrow the state
She had fifteen commie babies
Jerry Falwell ain't that great (or)
(chorus)
Reverend Goodman hated abortion
And for a peaceful end he searched
He said he'd never bomb our clinics
We said, "OK, we won't bomb your church!"
(chorus)
A man walked into an abortion clinic
Said he was gonna rape the boss
Then he'd make her have his baby
And then he'd hang it on his cross
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
The below is from a Slashdot comment, so should be taken with a grain of salt, but he does site his sources and the comparison seems to match everything I've read. I'm simply using it to save myself some time. I'll summarize: Advantage PS3. The only thing the Xbox 360 has going for it is the release date and (probably) the Xbox Live stuff. Enjoy!
Xbox 360 has a CPU FPS of 45 GFlops*
PS3 has a CPU FPS of 218 GFlops
Xbox 360 has a GPU FPS of around 955 GFlops**
PS3 has a GPU FPS of 1.8TFlops
Xbox 360 has a combined FPS of 1TFlops
PS3 has a combined FPS of 2.18TFlops
Xbox 360 has a DVD-ROM
PS3 has a BD-ROM
Xbox 360 is WiFi ready
PS3 is WiFi built-in
Xbox 360 has 3 x USB 2.0 ports
PS3 has 6 x USB 2.0 ports
Xbox 360 has support for 4 wireless controllers
PS3 has support for 7 wireless (Bluetooth) controllers
Xbox 360 uses Memory Units
PS3 uses MS Standard/Duo/Pro, SD standard/mini & Compact Flash Type I/II
Xbox 360 has support for select Xbox1 games
PS3 has support for PS1 & PS2 games
Xbox 360 has support for 1 720p & 1080i display
PS3 has support for 2 480p, 720p, 1080i & 1080p displays
Note:
* Derived from CPU Game Math Performance of 9 billion dot product operations per second
** Derived from subtracting published Overall System Floating-Point Performance of 1TFlops with derived from CPU Game Math Performance of 9 billion dot product operations per second
Source:
Wikipedia's PS3 Tech Specs
Official Xbox 360 Fact Sheet
Formula for Dot Product Operations Per Second to GFlops
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Joel Spolsky does a good job of clarifying both what Hungarian notation was
supposed to be as well as how it was turned into the most useless and irritating coding convention known to man in his article
Making Wrong Code Look Wrong. He also rants against exceptions. I'm not usually one to read, let alone link, to a "Joel on Software" article, but this one does a remarkable job of explaining how something as hideous as (Systems) Hungarian Notation could be so fervently expounded as the "One True Coding Style" for so long. Joel writes a lot of crap, but underneath the steaming pile are usually one or two nuggets that are worth digging out.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
I know, lets fight terrorism by
making it
easier to get a completely unquestionable ID. Repeat after me:
- It is (nearly) impossible to make an unforgeable ID card.
- It is impossible to ensure no valid, but false, ID cards are issued.
- A unified ID is more valuable to forgers, and there is, consequently, a higher incentive to forge.
- The more faith we have that a document saying who someone is can be used to determine what they are doing, the less secure we all are.
If a national ID card (which is what this is, don't try and soft-pedal it) actually had
any security benefits, I'd say go for it. But it doesn't. In fact, the scheme will result in less security and less privacy. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that yet-another-bad-idea was pushed through the Congress when the Idiots are in power. Do Republicans actually think? Or are they satisfied by short-sighted, asinine, knee-jerk reactions? Given their behavior and rhetoric during the last 70 years, I'm forced to conclude the latter.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
I saw this article linked from Google News today: Japan says kidnapping won't lead to withdrawal from Iraq. Of all the idiotic things to do. What possible effect do they think kidnapping a single person from Japan will have? These are the people who are famous for two things: their love of fish and their almost complete disregard for their own lives. These are the people renowned for flying Kamikazi missions. The ones who refused to surrender until we nuked two of their cities. The ones who, despite ample opportunity, chose to remain in caves as the oxygen was sucked out by fire rather than surrender. I mean, seriously, how dumb do you have to be?
Terrorist: We will kill you unless your country withdraws its troops.
Prisoner: Thank you for giving me the honor of dying for my country.
Terrorist: We will kill this prisoner unless you withdraw your troops.
Japan: You do his family a great honor by allowing him to die for his country.
What, do the terrorists think they have a monopoly on loony loyalty? I don't care what kind of religious zealot you are, there is no way your faith in Allah is going to out loony thousands of years of cultural indoctrination. What are you going to do to the Japanese? Suicide bombers? They fucking invented that. And they didn't do it with one or two people. They sent entire squadrons. In waves. Torture? There's little you can do to a man who would prefer to die in one of the most painful ways possible than to live in dishonor. Seriously, get over yourselves and get back to kidnapping people who might give a damn.
I think this passage summarizes the situation best:
''I am so sorry that my brother Akihiko caused lots of concerns and troubles to the Japanese government, the people of the Foreign Ministry, and the Japanese people. I am sorry,'' Hironobu said, sobbing.
The man's own brother is more concerned with troubling the government than his brother's life. Terrorism only works when the people are more affraid of you than they are of being dishonored.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
--Thomas Jefferson
Saturday, April 23, 2005
(Or should that be "Down Unda"?). Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of my coworker Eric Harrison (on K12LTSP) and the philanthropy and generosity of Mark Shuttleworth (of The Shuttleworth Foundation and the first African in space ), I arrived in Sydney at 6am this (Sunday) morning, Australian time. After spending 14 hours on a flight, I was glad to get out and take some pictures. Eventually, I'll post some of them in my photo gallery, but for now, I'm just glad to be on solid ground again. So far, it's a beautiful country. It's been interesting to see how another large former British colony has evolved. They seem to have embraced much more of the British influence than we Americans. They even drive on the wrong side of the road. One area where they have clearly not taken after the British is in their womenfolk who are frequently blond and hot :-)
Unfortunately, I have a bunch of homework due this Tuesday. And it's important homework...
Thursday, April 21, 2005
A little while ago, His Shortness and I were discussing the possibilities arising from the unholy marriage of BitTorrent and RSS. It looks like
The Participatory Culture Foundation may have beaten us to the punch, however. If it lives up to the hype, the software could be pretty amazing. Of course, the real money is going to be in providing real content this way, not the inane webcams of a thousand bored geeks.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Eric Von Hippel, Professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, has recently released a book entitled
"Democratizing Innovation" detailing the recent rise in "user-initiated" innovation and "open source". The book itself is available under a Creative Commons license (i.e. free ;-P) from the earlier link. I have not yet read it, but expect to have a lot of time to do so on my flights to and from Australia in the coming weeks. I expect to post a review eventually, but until then, I hope it manages to answer some questions some of you may have about why open source works.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Oh what silliness ensues when questing after the famed "first mover" advantage. Of course, if Microsoft does ship the XBox Deux before Christmas it might mean something . . . then again, it won't. It looks like the positions for the next round are reversed with Microsoft being first to market with an inferior product and Sony coming out (much) later with a more powerful box. Sony has also announced the PS3 will be backwards compatible with both PSOne and PS2 games; the only word from Microsoft has been "maybe". There is much speculation about using Virtual PC 7 for playing older XBox games, but nothing definite. On the game front, the Japanese might actually buy the XBox Deux and there have been many "defections" from Nipponese game makers. Should make for an exciting few years of gaming...
If only Judas would stop teamkilling...
Friday, April 08, 2005
I just thought I'd let everyone know that your illustrious host was
linked from Slashdot today. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with Katie Faber and everything to do with Encarta.
Monday, April 04, 2005
This article from The Register reminds us how wonderful a world without passwords can be.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
So apparently, writing short stories for English class constitutes a terrorist threat now... At least if your grandparents turn you over to the Gestapo for doing it that is:
Student in High School zombie terror threat.
Friday, December 03, 2004
The stupidest "education" bill ever, the No Child Left Behind Act, apparently has some interesting provisions buried in it. Along with meeting the unrealistic (some would say, impossible) standards of the act, schools also have to
provide confidential student records to military recruiters or be denied federal funds. This bill is completely indefensible and was clearly drafted by an idiot or someone who was activitly trying to sabotage education. If you disagree, you either haven't read the bill or are an idiot. There can be no discussion on those points. Okay, there is always a third possibility: you are a deeply disturbed individual whose continued existence threatens the viability of the human race. The Nationalist party is a menace to the health and well-being of this country, and thanks to the slow decline of the US hegemony, the entire world. Fortunately for the rest of the world, (and unfortunately for US) the actions of the "Red Menace" are rapidly hastening the decline.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
It isn't very often I get to read good news on the international front, but it seems India has realized sometimes you have to take the first step on the road to peace and pulled 1,000 troops from Kashmir. I know it's inate in primate psychology that the best response when threatened is to puff out your chest and make a lot of noise, but that instinctual reaction only ever inspires a similar response from the assumed aggressor. And things always escalate from there. We have higher brain functions, so why do world leaders so frequently resort to territorial pissing matches and primitive displays of power to deter aggression? Hopefully, India has realized (and it seems they have) that they only way to begin rational discussions over ending years of aggression and violence is to reduce the "threat level" enough so that the "enemy" no longer feels cornered and trapped. Let them relax, then begin the dicussions over what needs to be done so that the conflict can be resolved in a fair comprimise. Lets just hope both sides realize that in a situation like the one in Kashmir (or *ahem* Palestine) a "fair comprimise" means that both sides have to be flexible and be willing to give up something in exchange for peace.
There is hope that the situation in Kashmir can be resolved with a minimum of violence on either side at this point; Palestine is more difficult. Neither Arafat nor Sharon were willing to comprimise. Even if they had been, the amount of fear inspired on both sides of the conflict is going to make (and has made) any token reduction in the violence essentially meaningless. Perhaps with Arafat gone there will be a better chance for an eventual resolution. Unfortunately, Sharon's behavior makes this nearly impossible. Make no mistake, the Jews may have been persecuted by the Ancient Egyptians and the Nazis (among others), that, however, does not make them the eternally oppressed. They are the oppressors and are most assuredly "in the wrong" in this situation. That doesn't excuse the inflexibility on the part of the Palestinians. Neither side has behaved reasonably. Both sides have slaughtered civilians and tried to justify it with "they started it". Retaliation always breeds retaliation. Sometimes there comes a point when you have to ask yourself: how many more of my people have to die before I'm willing to end this?