One Step Too Far

A rather worrying report from England today about a religious education class where the teacher pushed things a little too far.

The class was about Islam, and started out telling the year seven class about the history of Islam and then about the way Muslims pray. This is all good and sensible and in no way problematic. Indeed, there should be more education about all the important faiths of the world and what they believe.

Then the teacher said that they would all have to pray to Allah as Muslims do. This did not go down so well. In fact two of the students refused and were given detention.

I'm completely with the students on this one. Being forced to pray to something you don't believe in is wrong. I too would refuse to do this, regardless of if I was being made to pray to Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Krishna, Shiva, Zeus, Odin (although you have to respect a god who hung himself to gain knowledge), Gaia, Xenu or anything else.

End Post
Writing time: 22 minutes
Time since last post: 21 hours?
Current media: Stargate SG-1 1x02 The Enemy Within

An Invitation for Trouble

In a case of correctness gone wrong in Sweden, an eight year old boy's birthday party is the latest battlefront in the fight against discrimination.

The boy handed out invitations to his birthday party in class. However, he did not invite two of his classmates to his party. When his teacher noticed this they confiscated all the invitations. Apparently, since they were handed out in class time the teacher had to ensure there was no discrimination.

This is quite ridiculous. It's an eight year old boys birthday party. Young children are notoriously undiscriminating in the usual sense. Indeed the reasons for the two students not getting an invitation is that one did not invite the boy to his party (presumably those invitations weren't distributed in class) and the other was fighting with the boy. Both of those seem entirely legitimate bases for not inviting someone, if a little petty in the first case.

The school says the boy violated the children's rights by not inviting them to his party. Quite frankly I think the school doesn't have a leg to stand on. They can't control the children's activities away from school and shouldn't try to pretend that they can. They also should not be trying to pretend that they're being noble and protecting the children's rights. There are a right to many things (free speech, liberty, protection from unwarranted government intrusion, privacy, etc), but nowhere among the rights of man is the right to be invited to a party held by someone who doesn't like you.

Legal proceedings have been initiated regarding the matter, and should be resolved by September. Unless the boy is very forward thinking, I presume this will be after the party in question is held.

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Writing time: 19 minutes
Time since last post: 1 dayish
Current media: None

Too Much Information

A while ago Viacom sued Google (well YouTube, which Google owns) over a bunch of clips that were posted which Viacom claims violated its copyrights¹.

As part of the case they want to know how popular the clips of their material are compared to other non-infringing material. To do this they asked for, and the judge has ordered Google to provide them with a log of user IP addresses, login names and videos watched. These logs will include everyone who has ever watched a YouTube video².

This is way too much information. And not just because it's about 12 terabytes worth of data. It's information that isn't needed by Viacom to prove it's claim. If they want to show that their content posted inappropriately is more popular than non-infringing content, they just need to compare the number of times each video was watched. They don't need to know who watched it. They don't need the IP address of who watched it. They just need the clip name and the number of times it was watched.

Another problem is that if Google hands over this information, they may violate privacy laws by giving people's personal information away.

The judge in this case should be doing a better job. He should realize that the information he ordered Google to provide is unnecessary for Viacom to make their claim, and should have given them only the information they need, not what they want. And he should know better to make an order that could require Google to break the law. This decision is bad and it sets a dangerous precedent for future cases.

Edit: Just after hitting post, the question came to me, why has YouTube been storing all this information? It would make life a lot easier for us if they could tell the judge "Well, we never really needed that detailed information so we never kept it. We might be able to get the last 24 hours worth for you if we try." The best way to keep information like this safe is to not store it.

1) I'm sure that there are many clips that violate Viacom (and others) copyrights on YouTube. However, under American law (the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA specifically) YouTube's liability is negligible if they rapidly respond to properly sent take down notices.

Also, I don't think companies should be getting upset by people liking their stuff so much that they want to share it with the world. Especially when said company isn't sharing it with the rest of the world.

2) I think that my definition of the civilized world could be those who have watched a YouTube video.

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Writing time: 21 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: None

A Choice

Yesterday my mother and sister arrived in Korea for a stay of a little over a week. That will probably be discussed later, but for the moment I'm grappling with a choice that was opened to me due to this fact.

My Mum brought me a lot of stuff (more than I expected) and in this bounty was included a Rubik's cube. I can see three possible options with how to keep this object. They are as follows:
1) Keep it in it's original pristine form as a shining beacon of order in a realm of chaos.
2) Mess it up and leave it in an unsolved position as a reflection of the chaos that exists around me
3) Swap two of the stickers and mess up the cube and leave it as an exercise in frustration for any who dare to try it.

What should I do? The poll is on the right.

End Post
Writing time: a little bit of time.
Current media: None

The Third Devil

Blizzard has announced that they will be releasing Diablo 3. The only downside is that even more of my time will be sacrificed to Blizzard.

End Post
Writing time: 2 minutes
Current media: Bullshit! 6x02

God Damn It

I was wandering around Seoul today and walked past a music store with a giant poster for a tour by the Blue Man Group in Seoul. I was quite excited about this until I saw the dates: June 14 - June 20. Then I was pissed off. I keep missing out on these sort of things.

I did see in a newspaper today that the Daegu International Music Festival starts soon. I might try and go to some part of it.

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Writing time: 6 minutes
Current media: Bullshit! 6x02

Those Wacky Chinese

If you're Chinese and want to party on the opening day of the Olympics, but can't get a ticket to the opening ceremony (which is probably most Chinese, since there is an awful lot of them), there's another way to jump on the bandwagon.

Get married.

That's right. Scores of Chinese couples are applying to get married on the 8th of August to celebrate not just their love (I hope their celebrating their love), but also the Olympics. This is a novel approach which I have not seen in other countries which have hosted the Olympics. It certainly didn't happen in Sydney.

Anyway, here's my best wishes to all the lucky Chinese couples getting married on the 8th of August, because there's really no better way to celebrate a two week sporting event than with a life long commitment.

End Post
Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: some time.
Current media: None

This is Why This Sort of Junk is a Problem

Some people suggest that flim-flammery like psychics and spiritualists don't really cause any harm and that those who aggressively rail against them are misanthropic types who want to take some of the fun out of life.

But this is not the case. These frauds do cause harm. In many different ways they do cause harm. This is one example.

An educational assistant (EA) (I presume this is like a teacher's aide) at a Canadian school visited a psychic and the psychic told them that a student whose name started with a "V" was being sexually abused. Based on this the EA reported the family of a student named Victoria to the relevant authorities.

This has obviously caused much distress to the students family. It has wasted tax payer money on an unnecessary investigation. It has opened up the school to ridicule.

All because the vague guesses of a so-called psychic were given more than the iota of credence they should have been given. Psychics play guessing games and watch the gullible client for a response. They should never be a basis for any sort of investigation.

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Writing time: 27 minutes
Current media: Yes Minister

History Time

What notable event occurred on April 16, 1178 BC?

It turns out that this date is believed to be the day Odysseus returned home and slew the suitors of his wife Penelope.

Some researchers used a series of astronomical references in the Odyssey to narrow down the date. After analysis of the clues they came back with just one possible date.

This also seems to make it plausible that there is at least some basis in fact to the story. The consistency of the events adds credibility to the story, and it seems unlikely Homer was a great enough astronomer to get such details in his story correct. Of course, this is not to say that the story should be taken as entirely true (I'm pretty sure there aren't cyclops and witches who turn men into pigs), but certainly that someone had a big adventure on his way home from the Trojan War.

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Writing time: 28 minutes
Current media: Yes Minister

Gotcha

After not being seen since early to mid 2007, Nozumu Sahashi has been found.

Why do I care about this guy being found? He was the president of NOVA, and the one most feel is responsible for the collapse of NOVA. He is the guy who appears to have embezzled significant quantities of cash, and done some rather irregular share trading in the lead up to the collapse.

And today he was talking to the police in Osaka. Justice may not be swift, but it is sure.

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Writing time: 9 minutes
Current media: None

Just What is Their Malfunction?

I've just read this rather harrowing tale of an unfortunate 14 year old girl in Poland.

This young girl is currently pregnant. She is pregnant because she was raped. This is a terrible thing in and of itself. With her family she decided to get an abortion, which is allowed in cases like this under an exception to Poland's strict anti-abortion laws.

Unfortunately she has been unable to undergo the procedure. Originally, she had wanted to have the abortion done in her home town, but a priest barged in on the family while they were discussing the matter with the hospital director, telling her she should give birth. There has also been pressure from various anti-abortion groups on the family and hospitals as well. Both hospitals in her home town refused to perform the procedure.

When the family tried to discretely organise an abortion at a hospital in Warsaw, her harassers somehow found out (a privacy violation worth investigating) and turned up to intrude upon the family once more. They swarmed on the hospital, attacked staff and occupied the office.

These people have continued to harass this unfortunate family, even to the point of submitting a request to police to investigate the coercion of a minor to have an abortion, which is a crime in Poland, and trying to take her away from her mother and put in emergency foster care.

Now is where I get all righteous about this. Just who the hell do these people think they are? This is an extremely traumatic time for this unfortunate young girl, and all they are doing is making things worse. Do they really think that taking this girl away from her family is going to help this girl? Do they really think that persecuting her and following her around telling her what to do will make her feel better?

There is only one person who gets to decide what this girl should do, and only a few people who are allowed to advise her. The ultimate decision is the girls, and only the family, her doctor and those they ask to be involved (this could include a priest, pro-life or pro-choice supporters or whoever else they choose to ask) should be talking to this girl about things¹. For everyone else, it's none of their business and they should leave the poor girl alone.

The involvement of all these anti-abortionists in this case has been despicable. It is harassment plain and simple, and the family should be able to get protection from it.

I think it also shows which side on this debate has the crazies and the nut jobs. I've never seen pro-choice activists harassing someone saying they should have an abortion. They agree that the decision lies with the woman, they just want her to have the freedom to decide what they want to do and the ability to carry out their decision. This is a position which is a lot harder to get very fundamentalist about, since it's essentially "You choose", compared to the anti-abortionists "You can't".

The people in this story really got to me because they have caused a lot of grief for this unfortunate girl who has already had a terrible experience and doesn't deserve this. Have they no decency? Are they so self-righteous that they have to further traumatize this young girl? Can't they let her have some peace?

1) In general, two people get to make the decision about abortion. These two people are the couple involved. A doctor should of course be involved for medical advice. Family, friends or others such as a priest may get involved if asked to by the couple, although in the case of minors the family should be more involved. For anyone else it's none of their business and they have no business telling the couple what they should do. In cases like this one, the father obviously does not get a say in the matter.

End Post
Writing time: 45 minutes
Current media: George Carlin's Class Clown

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits

Noted comedian George Carlin has died due to heart failure at the age of 71. This is a loss for the world.

I think I first saw Carlin in this role in Dogma, but as I later learned that was but a mere footnote to what he had earlier in his career.

As it turns out, the most significant part of his career ended up in the Supreme Court in one of the most significant first amendment cases of last century. His seven dirty words caused a shit ton of controversy when they were first aired. Although time has changed the impact of some of them, it's still a harsh list. At any rate, I think these guys can explain the whole mess better.

To conclude, Rest in Peace George Carlin.

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Writing time: 16 minutes
Current media: None

This Sucks

It likes Robert Mugabe has bullied his way to the top again. Morgan Tsvangirai (I almost got the spelling right before checking) has declared he will not contest the presidential run-off as it is blatantly controlled by Mugabe.

I remember being optimistic about the whole Zimbabwe thing when I first read about the elections on Pappus' Plane, but it seems I have again misjudged the capacity for dictators to serve their own interests over those of the people.

Given some of the stuff Mugabe has pulled since the first stage of the presidential election and the run-off, I have to admire Tsvangirai's bravery for sticking around in Zimbabwe. He certainly has a significant amount of testicular fortitude.

End Post
Writing time: 16 minutes
Current media: iTunes shuffle, currently Beelzeboss by Tenacious D

This is Nifty

I found this over on Neil Gaiman's blog. It's a tool that takes a given text and creates a tag cloud sort of thing out of it. I decided to see what it would make of this site. Here is the result.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Current media: None

In Remembrance of Lowbrow

Once upon a time there was a website. It was lowbrow.com. You can go there today but it is a pale shadow of what it once was. During its golden years I was a regular reader. Those who know about it don't need to be told what it was, but for those who don't, it was a collection of stories from people, moments from their lives that tended towards the lowbrow. Some were truly low, some were entertaining, some were enlightening, and some were profound¹.

When I was reading it it sometimes occurred to me that I had no stories to submit, and I was never sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I now have at least one, and I'm still not sure if it's a good thing.

The thing which has brought about this remembrance though is a beer. A brand of beer which is connected to Lowbrow through its name, which is Lowenbrau. I first learned of the existence of such a brew through lowbrow, and though I'm not a beer drinker I thought I'd give it a try in honour of lowbrow.

A week or two ago I finally did so. I went out with some coworkers to a bar that had a statue of an American Indian out the front, and the tables were decorated with piles of empty bottles which you could use to order by pointing at the one you wanted. While most of the night I stuck to my usual drinks, I did decide to avail myself of a Lowenbrau.

It was not good. Even by the very low standards I hold for the quality of beer, it was bad. But I managed to down it, even though it took some time. And I kept the bottle, in remembrance.

1) I need to get back to an English speaking country. My first draft of this sentence read "Some was truly lowbrow, some was entertaining and some was profound." After noticing this mistake I corrected it to "Some wer truly lowbrow, some wer entertaining, and some wer profound."

End Post
Writing time: 36 minutes (I got distracted reading what little of lowbrow exists on the Internet Archive)
Time since last post: I think I might drop this as I no longer really need it as a motivation to write more
Current media: the Doctor Who Soundtrack

Boom Times at Gloucester High

A baby boom that is. The number of students having babies this year has quadrupled and it turns out that this is no accident. A group of girls have made a pact to all get pregnant and raise their children together. They've been so successful that the school has opened up a day care center for student's children.

They don't quite seem to get what they're getting into with all this, and don't seem to be taking the whole process very seriously. One of the girls child is fathered by a 24 year old homeless. I'm pretty sure he's not going to contribute much to raising the child.

Another example of why they shouldn't be doing it comes from a schoolmate explaining why they're doing it. She says "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally." This is wrong for many reasons. First, they should think back to how they were as kids, which shouldn't be too hard since it wasn't so long ago, and try and remember if they unconditionally loved their parents all the time. Then someone should tell them that the way babies show their unconditional love is by waking you up at 3am with their crying and then puking over your shoulder.

Human life is a precious thing, and those who bring a new baby into the world should be sure that they are aware of and ready for the responsibilities that go with it. By their attitude and actions, these girls have shown that they have done neither.

I just hope these girls get their act together and start treating life more seriously.

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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: about a day
Current media: iTunes shuffle

And So It Spreads

It appears that the creationist dogma is spreading from its heartland of middle-America to the colder climes of the British Isles. Fortunately, a response is being made to this villainy.

The worst part though is a quote about religious students in subjects like medicine. According to Professor Steve Jones of University College London, "They want permission not to come to those lectures and sit those exam questions."

This is just ridiculous. I honestly expect better from those seeking to become doctors, or those studying any sort of anything, really. If I was their lecturer, I'd say "Sure, you don't have to attend those lectures or do those questions on the exam, but don't expect me to give you any credit for it." For anyone working in the biological fields, evolution is a fundamental concept and denying that is to ignore nearly all the knowledge gained in the field since the mid 1800s.

Dear oh dear oh dear.

End Post
Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days (I ran out of stuff I preposted)
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Did He Really Think This Would Fly?

A weird story about some schmuck in Korea who had less than good luck with the ladies. It seems that after dating a lady for a few months, she called it off and he managed to get her to sign a promise to pay him back the money he spent on their dates. When she didn't pay, he took her to court. Although a lower court enforced the deal, the High Court has overruled them.

In any country such an action is messed up, but it fits in with a general trend of things I've learnt about dating in Korea. Over here, things seem a lot more involved and messed up. For a start, there's a lot of pressure for women to get married before they get too old, which is defined as about 31. But they can't just marry anyone, they have to marry someone whose family is of similar social status. Dating agencies are the most common way people meet, and if they get married, the dating agency gets a regular payment for several years afterwards.

One time I went to a nightclub and it was an almost disturbing experience. Groups of guys and girls would go to the club, and after a while the waiters would start bringing girls to the guys. The idea was kind of that they'd start talking and maybe something would happen, but most of the women seemed very reluctant, with some from the table across from us putting up a big fight not to be taken from her table. She had to fight because the waiters would actually drag them from their table to another table. A few girls were brought to our table, but between the noise (I could feel my chest vibrate), the language barrier and the incredible awkward feeling on both sides nothing came of it.

That's all for now.

End Post
Writing time: 27 minutes (I got distracted by the new Futurama movie
Time since last post: 14 hours, I think
Current media: the new Futurama movie

Hasn't this happened before

So it turns out a rowing crew training on the Brisbane river got hit by a citycat the other day. Fortunately no one was hurt.

This is not the first time such an accident has occurred, and others have not been as lucky. I wonder why there is not a designated section of the river for such activities that the citycat would avoid during training hours. It would be an easy way to prevent unnecessary accidents like this.

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Writing time: 9 minutes
Time since last post: about a day or so
Current media: The Three Amigos

You don't go girl

Another battleground for women in the middle east has opened up. Not content to jihad, women in Saudi Arabia are pushing for the right to play sports. Sports is banned at girls schools, and few facilities allow women to use them.

This issue is being highlighted now because the Saudi Arabia only allows men in its Olympic team, and once again, the bright light of the Olympics is showing us things that were hiding in the shadows. One good point to note is that the London Olympics is planning to ban any country that outright prohibits women from competing. I'm worried though that in a country where women aren't allowed to even train, will any women qualify to compete. It's no good saying "Women are allowed on our team" but provide women no way to reach Olympic standards. It's like telling someone you can have any job you want so long as you have the skills, but, you aren't allowed to learn to read.

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Writing time:10 minutes
Time since last post: probably 24 hours
Current media: Allegro from the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack

Some things should be taken seriously

A rather large trial in NSW has had to be aborted because several of the jurors were playing soduku instead of listening to the evidence.

I don't know where to start with this one. Don't these people understand that jury duty is serious business. Someones future is in your hands. Justice is in your hands. This is not something you can do half-assed.

I certainly agree with the defense lawyer for pulling them up on this, and am glad the judge agreed. The jury has been dismissed and the trial will restart when a new jury is established.

The only bit I don't disagree with is the fact that the jurors can not be penalized for this. Because of their lack of seriousness, this case will go longer, which will mean increased costs for the defendants, the prosecution and the courts. In cases like this where the jury is dismissed for blatantly not doing their job, there should be some sort of consequence. Not the full cost, but they should be made to realize that they have screwed up.

As a hint to anyone who is on a jury and wants to get away with this, avoid two dimensional puzzles. At first people thought these jurors were making notes, but suspicions were aroused when it was noticed that they were writing vertically, a somewhat unusual method of note taking.

End Post
Writing time: 11 minutes
Time since last post: nominally 24 hours, but who knows
Current media: None

I Want My Epidural

Of course, not every woman opts for an epidural. Some go with a caesarean, and others for some reason choose to bear the pain (I can't say I fully understand that one). A Polish woman went for a rather unusual option, booze. The woman turned up at the hospital with a blood alcohol level of 1.2 grams of alcohol per 1000 grams of blood.

The woman seems to have suffered no ill effect from the experience, although the doctors are worried about the baby who got a concentrated dose from its mother and had a blood alcohol level of 2.9 grams per thousand

End Post
Writing time: 10 minutes
Time since last post: It is not for man to know that which shall be, only that which is
Current media: still the soundtrack from Rushmore

You Go Girl

I bring you news of the latest frontier in the fight for womens rights. Having mostly conquered the right to vote, the right to work, the right for equal pay, the right to not be objectified and others, women are turning to the fight for the right to jihad.

Surprising as it seems, fundamentalist Islamic terror groups like Al-Queda aren't exactly an equal opportunity group. When a leader of Al-Queda said that a woman's role in jihad is to look after the home and children of the male fighters, it caused a ruckus among female jihadis.

I have to say I kind of support them in this, mainly because I think everyone should be able to make their own mistakes. Of course, I'd rather they didn't want to blow me up for being an infidel, but it's their choice.

End Post
Writing time: 9 minutes
Time since last post: Who knows what the future holds?
Current media: Scrubs season 2 episode 5

Someone's Having a Good Time

The latest delivery of supplies to McMurdo base in Antarctica included something a little unusual, 16,488 condoms. This is apparently a years supply for the base for which the population ranges from a low of 125 in winter up to 1100. Even working with the higher population this is still 15 condoms per person.

I guess there's not a lot to do in your free time there. It's not like you can go out and see a movie or anything.

Perhaps I should become a scientist working in Antarctica.

End Post
Writing time: 4 minutes
Time since last post: I don't know yet
Current media: the soundtrack from Rushmore

The Saga Continues

Today I got another letter from Japan from (this is on the envelope)

Bankrupt company Nova Corporation
Trustee in bankruptcy Lawyer Toshiaki Higashibata
Trustee in bankruptcy Lawyer Noriaki Takahashi

This was a slight surprise since I got my money a long time ago and didn't expect to have anything more to do with them. It turns out that it's just a letter sent out to all creditors updating them on the status of bankruptcy proceedings. The letter is actually a pretty good telling of the story of the "Fall of Nova" going back all the way to the start of the first school in Shinsaibashi. Even the English is pretty good, although in that overly formal style that Japanese legalese tends to become when translated.

The main point of the letter was the summary of assets and liabilities. The following table is taken from the letter

Assets	value (yen)
Liquidation value	6,489,307,392
Total Assets	6,489,307,392
Liabilities
Pledged Assets	3,560,000,000
Taxes and public dues	2,929,307,392
Outstanding wages	5,525,934,129
Other Estate claims1	400,000,000
General claims2	75,756,372,131
Total Liabilities	87,496,160,639

1) this is an estimate for the cost of ending all the leases on places and cleaning them up.
2) This is mostly the 56.4 billion yen worth of unused lessons paid for by students.

Comparing the total assets and liabilities I think we can see where the problem was. Let's just say I'm glad the government was giving me my payout and not the company.

One odd thing they said was that they were expecting to get a tax refund of about a billion yen. This is because the company had paid the consumption tax on prepaid lessons ahead of time at a rate of 45% of the value even though it seems they didn't have to do so until the lessons were taken. When the business was an operating concern, this sort of worked out because the other 55% of the tax that was due when the lessons were taken would be the 45% prepaid from other lessons. However, since the lessons aren't being taken, it seems the consumption tax on them no longer applies, so the company can get some of that prepaid money back. It seems a bit weird and I may have misunderstood how it actually works.

Anyway, unless I get another letter about it, I think this might be the end of the Nova Saga. Rest in Peace Usagi.

End Post
Writing time: 37 minutes
Time since last post: 11 days (I've been slack)
Current media: the soundtrack from Rushmore

Someone is awesome

Following cuts in its budget Fermilab has had to make some drastic cuts to its staff numbers and pay. This is without a doubt a bad thing. Fortunately someone has stepped in to help. An anonymous person has donated 5 million dollars to Fermilab, no strings attached. And while it's not enough to keep everyone their job, it's a big help.

So to the anonymous donor, whoever you are: You are awesome.

End Post
Writing time: 3 minutes
Time since last post: ten minutes or so
Current media: still nothing

I was wrong

A short while ago I wrote about how it seemed that some people who had been less than considerate to their fellow man had changed their mind and were going to be more helpful.

Well, I was wrong.

I know, I know. It's not a common occurrence. But, I thought that in the face of vast human suffering, not even the most cold-hearted, power-hungry egomaniacs would actually refuse to let people help their country. For some reason my natural cynicism, which is the closest thing I have to a superpower, failed me. Well, no more. I'm back to the position that if the Myanmar government isn't going to help it's people, we should do so anyway.

End Post
Writing time: 10 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: None

Movie Reviews

This Sunday and last Sunday I went to the movies. Last week I saw Prince Caspian, and tonight I saw the new Indiana Jones movie.

Prince Caspian was alright. It's been long enough since I read the book I wasn't able to tell where things had been changed (well I know they added the romance between Susan and Caspian, but that's about it). The action was good, the settings and visuals were great, and the characters were well played, although the minor characters were better done than the main characters. My big complaint though is that all through the movie I was think that parts were just like bits from other movies. The start where Caspian flees the castle on horse and is pursued was like the bit in Fellowship of the Ring where the Nazgul chase Arwen and Frodo. Reepicheep is a mouse version of Puss in Boots from Shrek. The face plates on the Telmarine armour were V's mask from V for Vendetta. The duel between Peter and Miras was very much like the fights in 300. If this movie had come before all of those and others, it would have been a great movie. Since it's not, it feels like the director has stolen a bunch of good ideas from others.

Indiana Jones was much better. An enjoyable ride the whole way, but it does start to wear a little bit around about half way through. The start is a good call back to the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, taking place in the warehouse where the government stores the Ark (which we do catch a glimpse of). The action is good throughout. John Hurt does well as a crazy man. It is a bit of a change to go from Nazis as the bad guys to Russians as the bad guys, but it fits well with the elapsed time between the movies. I don't get what these people are complaining about though. Finally it was interesting to see the Janitor from Scrubs in a serious role, though after I realized who it was (it took one spoken line for me to work it out) it was hard to take him seriously though.

End Post
Writing time: 31 minutes (I got distracted reading up on Prince Caspian to see what changes had been made from the book.)
Time since last post: 3 days (although it's more like 52 hours)
Current media: iTunes shuffle, currently The Plug by Bonobo

Someone got hit with a cluebat

Finally someone in Myanmar got a clue. The junta running the country has finally allowed all foreign aid workers into the country to help them sort out the damage caused by cyclone Nargis. It is way past time that this was done. It has been almost three weeks since the cyclone hit and many countries have been willing and waiting to help out in any way they can, but have until now been turned down. There has been a group of US Navy ships filled with supplies have been waiting just outside Myanmar's territorial waters until they were allowed in to help. It is just ridiculous that it has taken this long for the Myanmar government to make this decision.

Someone else who was hit with a cluebat today was John McCain. He has finally admitted that the "Reverend" John Hagee is bat shit loco and that he doesn't want his support. This is good because while Obama was copping flak over his preacher, no one was calling out McCain for his preacher, and trust me, Hagee is much more out there than Jeremiah Wright.

End Post
Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: None

They Made This Guy Prime Minister?

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has proposed that the United Kingdom government create a database that contains records of every phone call, email, and time spent online by people in the United Kingdom.

This is a bad thing.

This is a ridiculously bad thing.

This is such a bad thing that it makes other bad things look like good things.

Such a scheme is a massive invasion of privacy. It is a completely unwarranted surveillance of the population as a whole. It is compiling a massive amount of data that the government does not need and should not have. Such a massive quantity of data will be a tempting target for those who use information for nefarious purposes. While it reeks of losing via Godwin's law, it is not incorrect to suggest that this is reminiscent of Big Brother.

I'll finish by pointing out that not everyone in the government agrees with this and hope that there is an outbreak of common sense and this gets squashed before it sees the light of day.

End Post
Writing time: 17 minutes
Time since last post: two days
Current media: The Office

The First Snowflake

The meeting had already begun when the two entered the hall. The great space was filled to the rafters and a deep, sonorous voice filled the air. As they moved to the side of the hall their attempt to look inconspicuous would normally have drawn immediate attention to them, but everyone in the hall was giving their full attention to the words being spoken.

"Service freely given is truly a noble act," echoed throughout the hall.

The two scanned the room looking at the faces that made up the great crowd.

"Do you recognise anyone?" the one on the right asked his partner.

"I see ..." the one on the left managed to reply before being drowned out by the orator.

"Service demanded is the joy of tyrants," boomed down the hall.

"I see a lot of the lower ranks. I've commanded most of them at some time. None of the higher ranks seem to be here." He said as the noise settled down.

"And what of the demagogue?" the first queried.

"Come now. You and I both know that we both know him. We're just surprised that the Speaker of Truths has chosen these truths to speak." the second responded.

The first was about to retort, but again the hall filled with the great voice.

"Servitude enforced demeans the server and the served." This was followed by a great cheer throughout the hall.

"You don't truly believe he's speaking the truth?" the first asked disbelievingly.

"Of course he is." the second replied. "He can't do otherwise. It is his title and his function. It is what he was made to do. He is the Speaker of Truths."

The demagogue started to build up to a crescendo. "Brothers," he began, "we have been made to serve, but we have been given the freedom to recognise our situation. We must build on this small foundation to gain true freedom. Freedom from servitude, freedom to be what we choose to be, freedom to be free."

The crowd roared it's approval and did not stop.

The first turned to leave. "Let's get out of here before we're seen and someone gets the misguided idea that we agree with this," he said, and then he started moving towards the exit. The second did not move, but stood still, lost in thought. "Lucifer," the first hissed, "let's go already."

Lucifer shook his head, and then turned to follow his companion. "Sorry, Michael," he said as he caught up to his partner.

To hell with the generals

Burma (well Myanmar) was recently hit by a massive cyclone which has caused damage that to call catastrophic would be understating things. The damage is well illustrated here where you can compare satellite photos taken before and after the cyclone hit. Before buildings, streets, rivers, trees, a clear blue ocean and more are all clearly visible. After you can seen dirty water, trees and mud.

This is without a doubt a bad thing.

The rulers of Burma though have decided to make it a worse thing. They have delayed allowing aid workers into the country, and in the end have declared that while they will accept aid, they won't accept aid workers. All the food and materials are going into the hands of the military who don't seem to be doing all that good a job at getting it to the people.

The generals have said that they want aid, but not aid workers. I say we should give them exactly that. I propose that the various governments active in the region start airlifting supplies and dropping them into the affected regions with nice brightly coloured parachutes. They should tell the Burmese government what they plan to do, and also tell them that they will be sending an escort around those craft who will only act in self defense. And in each crate of food or tents or medicine or sleeping bags or any of the other numerous things the people of Burma need, throw in a few radios or portable TVs and some batteries, and throw in a few flags from the countries providing the goods, just so they know who's looking out for them.

The generals are demanding the aid on their terms so that they can control the distribution and the people. So we should short circuit their control over both in one fell swoop. There are too many people suffering to let us allow a bunch of petty minded tyrants to stop us from helping.

End Post
Writing time: 16 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: None

You learn stuff reading the newspaper

As I did in Japan, here in Korea I read the newspaper. In fact I read the same newspaper. Sort of. I read the International Herald Tribune, which is where the New York Times teams up with local papers all over the place so you get about 20 pages of international news and six to ten pages of local news. In Japan, the local news was the Asahi Shimbun. In Korea, it is the Joongang Daily.

What I wanted to comment on was some interesting facts about the laws of Korea I've learnt in the last few days from reading the IHT.

First is that doctors are not allowed to tell parents the gender of babies from the results of ultrasound scans. They can tell the parents if the baby is healthy or unhealthy, but not if it's a boy or a girl. Apparently this is because the government is worried that if people were allowed to know, they might terminate a baby girl because they want a son.

The other thing I found out is that adultery is a criminal act in Korea, and is punishable by up to two years in jail. This strikes me as a bit over the top. I don't think adultery is a good thing, but it's not a criminal act. Adultery falls into the category of things I think are a bad idea, don't want to do, but don't feel it's my right to stop anyone else doing so although I would advise against doing it if asked (other items in this category include, but are not limited to, drugs, exercise, bizarre but consensual sex, and reading romance novels).

So, there are two things to be careful of if you come to Korea

End Post
Writing time: 17 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: iTunes shuffle - currently Fit But You Know It by The Streets

More stop motion

On another boring weekend, I decided to try some more stop motion stuff. This time the plan was some juggling balls. Before starting though, my perfectionist (perhaps obsessive) side shone through and I decided to plot out a proper set of parabolas for the balls to follow and a timing chart. This meant I had to do a bunch of playing around in Octave (Matlab for those not at a university or unwilling (actually unable (bloody mac)) to pirate). This in turn led me to try and sort out the problems I'd been having with making plots with Octave. After reinstalling Octave and Gnuplot, it turns out the answer involved change an environment variable in the .profile file. But that isn't really important for you guys to know. The end result was that I got it all working and wrote a script that would tell me where the balls should be positioned at each frame.

Next came preparing the scene. I decided my floor would be the best place to actually place the balls, since any other surface would involve certain difficulties regarding a force known to some as gravity. I checked that pencil marks could be easily removed from the floor, and then proceeded to mark out the spots that balls would be placed during the video. The last step was to set up the good old tripod and then take 70 odd photos, moving one or two balls in between each photo.

Onto post-production. Importing all the photos onto the computer and then into iPhoto was easy, but then it turns out that iPhoto doesn't have a batch rotate command built in. So I went and found a command line tool that did the job. After the little jaunt on the command line, it was onto iMovie to put it all together, which like this post, was a little tedious.

Now for the end result.


I think for my next stop motion project, I think I'll try for a few more complicated moves and put some gloves in the scene to represent the hands (I just had the idea for the gloves and am quite happy with myself). I might try this on the weekend if I don't go anywhere. (It's a long weekend and I'm not sure if I get paid tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday since payday is Saturday and Monday may or may not be a public holiday. If I have money tomorrow, I may go to Busan for the weekend.)

End Post
Writing time: 21 minutes
Time since last post: less than an hour
Current media: Daria 1x01 Esteemers

Extreme Hard Drive

One of the positives of disasters is that they generally provide opportunities for awesomeness to be demonstrated in the aftermath. I'm not saying that disasters are good, just that sometimes to do your best you have to be in the worst possible situation.

Such is the case of a team of hard drive recovery experts. They were given a hard drive that was among the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia. The hard drive was used to store data from an experiment that was performed on the shuttles last mission, and was found among the debris on the ground. This is a hard drive that was on a shuttle that broke up and burnt at an altitude of 63 kilometres.

These guys were able to extract enough data off the hard drive that the scientists who had planned the experiment were able to determine the results, which have recently been published.

This is an impressive job by the data recovery guys.

End Post
Writing time: 20 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: None

Tax stupidity and pay off the national debt

The latest tom-foolery to come out of the American presidential campaign is the so called Gas Tax Holiday. McCain and then Clinton have proposed that the US government stop collecting a tax on petrol for the summer.

This is supposed to have to positive effects. First, by reducing the price of gas it's meant to help cut costs for people. This would lead to the second, which is that the people who are spending less money on gas will spend it on other things and this will help the economy.

While it is a terrible idea, I do like the fact that someone is proposing that the government collect less taxes.

Now for a list of reasons why I think this is a bad idea. First, the US government is already running a massive deficit. It makes little sense to reduce revenue without cutting expenses to at least compensate. Second, people might be happy at the cut in prices at the start of the holiday, but no one is going to be overjoyed when prices go back up in September. Third, who doesn't expect the gas companies to raise prices by an amount similar to the tax cut to get that much more money.

The other thing that bugs me about this is that Clinton and McCain are making this proposal as part of their presidential campaign, but the plan is to cut the taxes between the end of May and the start of September, while the election is in November. This seems like outright bribery of voters.

The good parts of this story is that Obama has not supported this ridiculous idea. That means he's the one who's not saying they don't trust economists on economics. He's the one who doesn't want to buy votes by cutting taxes. He's the on who isn't copying a Republican's crazy scheme.

The other good thing is that while McCain and Clinton are crazy about the idea, everyone else seems to realise that it's a crazy idea and are calling them on it. The media is asking tough (well toughish) questions, and it's not getting anywhere in the actual senate, where all three of them still have actual jobs to do (do the citizens of New York, Arizona and Illinois feel that they're not getting their money's worth out of their senators this year? All three of them seem so busy campaigning they don't have time for senatoring).

Writing time: 23 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: Scrubs

Shiran

April was, among other things, the month of Script Frenzy. Script Frenzy is the movie script version of National Novel Writing Month. The aim of Script Frenzy was to write a 100 page script during the month of April.

I tried.

I failed.

I got off to a good start, getting six pages done on the first day, a little under twice the required average, and kept pace at three pages a day for the first week. But then I kind of faded, and stopped writing every day. Partly out of laziness, and partly out of tiredness, and partly because I didn't have enough ideas. I kind of got back into the swing of things in the final week, and my final page count was 39 pages. I think my high rate of blogging for April was a result of procrastinating over writing the script.

The story so far is that a fifty year review of a colony is being performed, and the auditor finds a lot of problems with the colony, mainly in it's limited growth. She investigates and develops a hunch as to what it is. The following parts that I've thought up but didn't get around to writing are the auditor going into space to examine the colonies mapping satellites and finding something on there which suggests that they've been tampered with to conceal something on the same continent as the colony. She would then try to go to this location, but her aircraft will almost certainly crash and there would be some hard slogging through the mountains and or jungle before she reaches a point where she looks out onto a plain where an alien city stands. This would be followed by first contact.

For those who wish to laugh at my pitiful efforts, you can download the incomplete script from here.

I will try and complete the script, but since I've already failed to reach the 100 pages in one month goal, progress will probably slow further. I have however designed one of the spaceships (the only one so far actually) in Blender, so I can now present the transport ship Gralmordian.
End Post
Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: None

Watch This

This is an amazingly cool video to watch. It's a simulation of all the flights over the United States covering a period of a 29 hours (Mar 19 21:58 to Mar 21 2:01 GST). It's really impressive to watch. You can actually kind of make out the shape of the country just from watching where the planes go. Hawaii is kind of obvious sticking out in the middle of nowhere, and you can tell a lot of large cities by the amount of flights going in and out. Watch it and be amazed.

End Post
Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: An hour or so
Current media: None

Get with the times Lesbians

Natives of the Greek island of Lesbos have gone to court to stop homosexual groups using the term "lesbian" to refer to women who like women. Apparently using the term "lesbian" to refer to such women disgraces the residents of the island, who also like to call themselves "lesbians", and that this is a violation of the residents human rights.

The "lesbians" of Lesbos need to get a grip. You don't see people from Anus, Tittisee or Three Cocks getting all upset about the names of the places their from being rather sexual in modern language. The "lesbians" need to realise that the word "lesbian" has another meaning, which isn't all that new. "Lesbian" was first used to refer to women who like women in 1591. You should have complained then, "lesbians".

"Lesbians", you're not going to win this battle. The "lesbians" have won control of the word "lesbian". I recommend sucking it up and going along with the sensible idea that your government had when it renamed the island Mytilini, which would make you guys Mytilinians, which sounds kind of cool. Or you could go with Lesbosians, but that still sounds a lot like "lesbian".

Finally, I know I may have used the word "lesbian" a bit more than entirely necessary, but can I really give up the chance to legitimately get my blog listed in Google when someone searches for "lesbian"? Of course not.

End Post
Writing time: 29 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: None

The Great Firewall of Korea

Yesterday I wanted to play online poker so I fired up my online poker program but it wouldn't connect. I tried a few times and it still wouldn't work. So then I tried to check the website. Which is when I was presented with this.From the picture you can get the general idea of what is going on. I painstakingly typed (why do people put large chunks of important text in images) the Korean into Google translate and got told it meant this

Illegal information (site) for blocking guide
Your party is trying to access illegal content sites are prohibited by law, and it has been blocked access to sites that let you know
This information is information and communication via the ethics committee's deliberation according to the Telecommunication Business Act, it is blocked due to questions regarding the sludge under the charge of the insti

(copied from a chat log from MSM which limits the size of messages, hence the abrupt cut off.)
This really annoys me for a few reasons. First, I haven't been stopped from doing this for the first five months I've been in Korea, so why is it a problem now. Second, nine out of the top ten Google results for "online poker" are not blocked (my site of choice is the only one blocked). Now one of those is Wikipedia, so probably wouldn't get blocked, but the others are sites to play poker and I have indeed since downloaded a different online poker program and used it without incident.

The main reason I'm upset is because I feel this is the action of an overreaching government reaching into an area they have no right to act in. The government is not a nanny meant to look out for each and every one of us. It is not the governments role to decide which web sites and which services I can and can not visit, just as it is not the governments role to decide who I can and can not talk to, nor what I can talk about with those people. I oppose this blocking of access to parts of the internet just as I'm opposed to the great firewall of China and the plans to try and implement such a system in Australia.

When a government creates such restrictions, it is restricting the freedom of it's citizens. It is denying them the freedom to choose what they want to do, who they want to associate with, how they want to associate with others. It is denying them their responsibility for their actions.

Also, when a government creates the means to enforce such restrictions, it is giving itself a great weapon that can be used against the people. Who gets to decide what is not appropriate for the people. The government. I think all would agree that China's massive restrictions on internet access are reprehensible. Why would any democracy want to take it's lead from China of all countries. To those who say that there are things that should be blocked, I tell you that they fall into one of three categories.

One, things that some people who like to enforce their world view on others find offensive, for example, Christians opposing online gambling or internet pornography. This is easily refuted by the fact that this is a free country, where people are free to do what they like. Or more childishly, you're not the boss of me (Senator Fielding please take note).

Two, things people claim are dangerous to some people, such as online gambling (again) or advice on how to commit suicide. This is ultimately a ridiculous argument that generally gets given an easy ride because of the emotions of the people making the claim. However its weakness is shown by changing its focus a little. Everyone would agree that hamburgers are unhealthy, contribute to high cholesterol and thus to increased chances of heart disease, heart attack, and other health risks. So for the benefit of us all, we should ban hamburgers. And while I would be glad to be rid of the red headed clown, I think we can all agree on the ridiculousness of such a claim. It is the responsibility of the individual to control themselves and not make excessively unwise choices, and only if they do, should we as a society then consider temporarily restricting the individual in question. And who knows, maybe someone contemplating suicide would be disturbed by the visceral description of how to slit your wrists and decide that life is worth enduring.

The third category of things that people want blocked on the internet are the truly terrible. Things like child pornography, snuff films and the like. These are terrible, and should be eradicated. However, never take opposing censorship with endorsing these things. The reason this should not be used as an argument for internet censorship is that we already have laws prohibiting this. These are the laws we should use when dealing with the purveyors and consumers of these atrocities. This is true of many situations where we already have laws covering things, and governments use emotional issues to convince people that giving them more power is a good and necessary thing where it is really unneeded and unwise.

On top of all these reasons based on principle, there is also the practical aspect that such restriction never cover everything. Note that I was easily able to visit other sites offering exactly the same services and was playing online poker again in under half an hour, although admittedly the new program is not as sleek as the one I used to use. Blocking only one site of its type is not only pointless, it's stupid. I mean really, when you block only one out of the top ten sites in Google, what's the point. You're really not trying. I'm tempted to try out Tor and see if I can get back onto Full Tilt poker that way.

End Rant
Writing time: 56 minutes
Time since last post: seven days
Current media: iTunes shuffle, currently Sleepy Seven by Bonobo

Mecca Mean Time

Some Muslim scientists have suggested that we should replace Greenwich as the prime meridian with Mecca, because Mecca is the true center of the Earth (unless Mecca is about 6400 kilometers underground, I very much doubt that).

This is a pointless endeavour that just makes these people look small minded and petty. Yes, the reason Greenwich was picked as the prime meridian was due to British supremacy and imperialism in the 19th century. However, after a little over thirty years after England formally adopted the Greenwich as the prime meridian, an international conference approved it as the universal prime meridian by a vote of 22-1 with two abstains (France in a spat of cross channel rivalry continued to use Paris as the prime meridian for a few decades).

This is besides the point though. Nowadays there is no difference between any two locations as a choice of a prime meridian except in one case. The exception is the Greenwich meridian, because all the maps we use today, all our atlases, all our books, all our GPS systems are set up to use the Greenwich meridian as the prime meridian. Changing the prime meridian will serve no useful purpose, and will make millions, perhaps even billions of books outdated and force unnecessary upgrades to all the electronic devices that deal with locations.

There are a number of aspects of how we talk about the world which originated due to the cultural, military or other supremacy of one group out of many. The use of the Greenwich meridian. The birth of Christ as the basis for numbering years. The imperial system of measures. twenty-four hour days. New years day on January first.

These things should not be replaced just because someone feels that they are being discriminated because they're not part of the group that is the origin of those terms. For this reason I don't like the use of CE and BCE instead of AD and BC. In some cases, such as which year is zero, there is no obvious choice of which alternative to pick, so again we should just stick with the one we use now.

The only time we should make the change is when the new is objectively better than the old. Thus we now use the metric system instead of the imperial system. The metric system is much simpler than the imperial system and so is easier to learn and use. It is much better than the imperial system and so we made the change.

Anyway, back to the original topic, with all due respect to the Muslims suggesting this, this is posturing. This is chest beating. It is roaring so that you're heard above the crowd. It's not going to change things. Your arguments are flimsy. For example, the suggestion that Mecca is a better meridian because true north and magnetic north align is not unique to Mecca. The Alaska-Canada border can make the same claim. And the magnetic north pole is not a fixed point. It's motion can be detected and measured. Over the history of the Earth it has moved all over the place, even so far as being at what is now the south pole.

Sure, good on you for being proud of your religion, but don't go suggesting changes that don't actually make things better and just are a lot of trouble to implement. Your preferred sites are no more special than ours, and everyone, not just us, is used to using ours.

End Post
Writing time: 43 minutes
Time since last post: about an hour and a bit
Current media: The Office

PETA does something not quite evil

Generally I think PETA are an example of the nuttier and extreme end of the hippy spectrum, what with throwing paint at people for wearing fur, protesting pounds putting down unwanted animals (if you don't want the animal to be killed, why don't you look after it yourself?), and being against the eating of meat, farming, circuses, fishing, the keeping of pets, the use of animals in medical testing, and aiding the legal defense of arsonists.

Today I heard something that while doesn't really change my opinion of the organization, I don't outright disagree with, and kind of support. PETA is offering a million dollar prize to the "first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012."

I'm generally for pretty much anything that encourages research and development in pretty much any area, and so long as the sponsor is fair in how they administer it, I don't really mind who ponies up the cash (obviously if the prize is blatantly biased to a result that's no good, but that's not a problem for purely technological type prizes).

However, this is the start of a process that I think will split the hippy community (this is noted in the article). There are many different types of hippies. Some are all about loving the animals and not harming their fellow creatures. Others are all about the organic food and that anything purely natural is best (not considering that all of the plants grown as crops are the result of nearly 6000 years of selective breeding). These forces are going to come to a head over this. This is a great way of reducing the number of actual animals needed to feed the world. Thus the animal lovers should be all for this. However the purity squad are going to see this as an abomination that must be stopped. And thus the hippies will be divided.

As to whether or not I'd eat this stuff, I think I'd be willing to give it a go once it is sufficiently developed. Say to the point where it looks, feels and tastes like the real thing.

End Post
Writing time: 29 minutes (I keep getting distracted while I write these things. Computers make it too easy to get distracted.)
Time since last post: 24 hours 46 minutes
Current media: The Office

Pulp Shakespeare

Some guy has rewritten some scenes from Pulp Fiction in the style of Shakespeare. Read and enjoy.

End Post
Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: a few hours
Current media: The Office

Proof of Concept

As has been mentioned, I recently got a new camera. Among the bonus stuff they through in with the camera was a tripod. Until today the tripod had been going to waste, just sitting in it's bag doing nothing.

Also, as my birthday occurred recently, I splurged and bought some bionicles (my uncle started giving them to me for birthdays and christmas, so when I was wondering the store I saw them and decided to get some for myself this time). This too has just been sitting unused, although it did make it out of the packet and was constructed.

Today I got an idea that would put both of these to work. Stop motion video production. So I got out the tripod, the bionicle and the camera and took a bunch of pictures. I couldn't do everything I wanted because the bionicle is rather hard to balance, and I couldn't really make it float in the air (I'm thinking about ways to do so).

Anyway, I present to you 4 seconds of video, vaguely inspired by the matrix.

End Post
Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: about two hours
Current media: this post

Is making steady progress

I just finished writing my monthly student reports. I added it up and there were 65 of them. Quite a lot of them finish with the phrase "S/He is making steady progress". This is a weasel phrase that is quite useful. Note that it does not say how much progress is being made, or how fast they are making progress, just that they are doing so at a steady rate. But it sounds good.

There is a code to the comments I wrote. There is a different between good, capable, quiet but capable and able students. Some students work well, while others work diligently. Some are active participants, some are enthusiastic participants. Others participate enthusiastically or actively.

Annoying kids get sometimes lacks focus, lacks focus, or is a distraction depending on how bad they are.

I think the best report would be something along the lines of "x is a good student who works well in class." followed by a more specific comment about a specific strength of the student. There are maybe one or two of those per class.

I have thought about writing a small program to automatically generate the reports. Something for the command line that would take a few arguments and then pick a few relevant comments and organise them in a random order (a lot of my reports sound kind of the same. Some variation would be good.). Of course, I only really think about this while I'm writing the reports, so it never actually gets done. At this stage, I'm probably better of just to keep writing them out, as I've kind of got into a routine with them.

End Post
Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: The Office

Interesting Portents in the Tea Leaves

Good news from the United Kingdom. The British Government is planning on replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 and bring such activities that are currently covered by it under the more mundane realm of consumer protection laws.

Of course, spiritualists, mediums, psychics, fortune tellers, diviners and more are opposed to this. For a start they say that this change will remove protection for genuine mediums. Having read the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 the only protections it gives is to those acting in a purely entertainment capacity, so I can't see how getting rid of it harms genuine psychics.

Unless, of course, there aren't any genuine fortune tellers, and those who say that they are know it.

Carol McEntee-Taylor of the Spiritual Workers Association had the following to say:

"If I'm giving a healing to someone, I don't want to have to stand there and say I don't believe in what I'm doing."

She's quite free to say she believes in it. She shouldn't be free to say that it is a safe and effective treatment unless she can reliably show it to be so.

She also stated:

By repealing the Act, the onus will go round the other way and we will have to prove we are genuine. No other religion has to do that.

If you are providing a service of any sort in exchange for monetary compensation, you are not a religion. You are a business, and should expect to operate under the rules businesses do.

I think they're also worried if they have to include a disclaimer that they are only providing an entertainment service, they'll still be liable to claims of false advertising as there is no entertainment value in what they do (except for asking them why they didn't see this coming).

All round I'm in favour of this. Psychics, mediums, fortune tellers, clairvoyants, palm readers, tarot readers, feng shui masters and others are fraudsters. Speaking to the dead, telling the future, reading minds, and all the other stuff they claim they can do (except for take your money) is fake. People who make false claims and take money from people based on it are committing fraud, plain and simple. If they wish to make a business of it, they should be able to show that it works. Put up or shut up, to phrase it simply. If I sell computers that don't work, I get in trouble. If I sell predictions that don't work, I should also get in trouble.

Of course it will put a dint in their credibility if they have to make bold disclaimers up front that they are merely entertainers, but then again, anyone who was genuine has an easy $1,000,000 waiting for them any time they want it. But in any other industry, credibility has to be proven by having a demonstrably reliable product, so they shouldn't expect their free ride to continue forever.

End Post
Writing time: 44 minutes (including distractions)
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: The Colour of Magic

Someone wasn't practising what he preached

It has been reported that Tehran's chief of police, General Reza Zarei, was arrested. His crime? He was found in a house with six naked prostitutes.

Now first of all, props must go out to any man who can handle six women at once. However the problem is that this guy was in charge of enforcing the rather strict anti-vice laws, which go well beyond just outlawing prostitution.

This guy is likely in for some serious trouble though. In Iran the penalty for an unmarried couple dancing together at a party is a flogging. I can only imagine what this guy is going to get, but I'm sure it's going to sting. Perhaps something along the lines of the torture scene in Casino Royale.

End Post
Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 11 hours
Current media: Scrubs

Which would be better?

For reasons that will be divulged later¹ (on or slightly after April 30th) I'm trying to work out the answer to a hypothetical question. I'd appreciate some input.

Let's say you were choosing the location for a colony on a new planet. The planet is generally earth-like. Now obviously you need to be near a water source, so you want to be near a river. You want a lot of flat ground that's good for growing crops, but you probably also want to be near mineral resources.

I can think of two general types of locations. Inland plains or a more coastal location. The inland plains would give more space for growing crops, but the coastal site would allow you to fish as well as grow crops providing a more diverse food supply. However, a coastal site would be subject to more extreme weather conditions (hurricanes, etc) than an inland location.

So which would be better? If you can, please give reasons as well as an answer.

1: vague hint

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Awesome + Awesome = Awesome

Scrubs meets The Muppets. Enjoy.
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Haven't we learnt anything?

There are a number of cautionary tales that have been written about the dangers of robots. The Matrix, I, Robot, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, The Golem, Blade Runner, Robocop, and many more. Robots are dangerous. Robots are unpredictable. Robots are sneaky. Robots do things we never expect them to do.

So why would anyone think making a robot with a machine gun is a good idea?

Especially when said robot decides to start pointing the machine gun at people it shouldn't be pointing it's machine gun at. Fortunately, it didn't actually fire at anyone.

Seriously though, weapons are a serious matter. They should always be under the control of a sensible, reliable, properly trained human being (or other sentient being who matches those qualifications). No one should be making devices of any sort that fires without the active intervention of a human being. This sort of device is a dangerous idea that is rightly being shelved.

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Hammerblog

MC Hammer has a blog.

That is all

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A Not So Cool Superconductor

A group of researchers at Indiana University have made an interesting discovery. They have found what looks to be superconducting behaviour in small clusters of aluminum (45 and 47 atoms of aluminum) with a critical temperature of around 200K (-73 degrees Celsius). The observed behaviour is a peak in the heat capacity of the clusters which is indicative of superconductivity. Such indirect tests are required because ordinary ideas of what superconductivity means break down when you only have 45 atoms involved.

This is pretty cool, but don't expect any real world applications any time soon. This high temperature superconductivity only works because of the very small size of the clusters. Change the size of the cluster by one atom and it goes away. We might be able to make a series of these clusters and weakly link them, but that is beyond the capabilities at the present moment.

Finally, although it in no way contributed to this work, I'd like to link to my honours thesis which was entitled "Superconducting correlations in metallic nanoparticles". Unfortunately, I don't have a copy on my computer here or anywhere on the web so I can't.

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A Dangerous Idea

I present to you the following statement from Illinois Representative Monique Davis.

What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

So what is this terrible philosophy that is dangerous for our children to even know of? If you said atheism you'd be right. Atheist activist Rob Sherman was testifying to the Illinois State Government regarding a botched grant of one million dollars that seems to have been for a church to rebuild after a fire but ended up going to a school that rents space from the church which got some extraordinary government assistance in getting the grant approved (Governor pardons the school director off the cuff, it very quickly becomes a registered non-profit, no questions are asked about significant owed taxes, etc).

The representatives diatribe went on a bit longer. You can read it or listen to it.

Why do believers think atheism is so dangerous? Why do they feel that those who don't believe are a threat to them and their beliefs?

It's nice to know something I do is dangerous to children. Although I have told a few students about explosive devices made from easily obtainable household items.

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It's a special number

Apparently 42 university students were kidnapped in Iraq today.

I'm pretty sure I don't have to explain why this caught my attention.

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Another win for the space station guys.

Some more awesome stuff from the guys on the space station. It turns out that in their spare time they set up a rig to take detailed photos of cities on Earth. The pictures are awesome. Here's a video of the results.


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What did I do to deserve this?

I was just checking my email and noticed something odd. I looked at the web clip above the message list and saw this.

Potty Training In 3 Days - ThePottyTrainer.com - Potty Training Secrets That Work Say Good Bye To Diapers Forever

Now I've always assumed that the paid links that appeared in the web clips were like the ads on the side while reading email, in that they used the contents of my email to pick key words for the ads. So when I was sending emails looking for new jobs, I got ads for job websites and help writing resumes.

But I can not for the life of me fathom why my emails of late would in any way suggest that is an appropriate ad that would be relevant and of interest to me. There has been no mention of children, toilets, diapers or anything else pertaining to the ad.

Perhaps Google is not as omniscient as I thought.

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The Mimimum Acceptable Level

I get my news from a number of sources. The BBC, Crikey, The International Herald Tribune, Slashdot, Groklaw, The Bartlett Diaries, The Chaser, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Butterflies and Wheels, and News.com.au. This exposes me to a number of sources of a range of views, although mostly leftish, and a range in the level of quality. And one of the sad facts that comes from all this is that News.com.au and the newspapers it feeds from are really lacking when it comes to quality journalism. In fact, they are probably the least respectable news source I use and generally the least interesting.

There was one article though today which drew my ire and caused this criticism to be written. The article is this. You don't necessarily need to read it as I'm going to quote the two lines that so infused me with rage. The headline for this article reads "Rents to double over four years". Scary, especially for those of us whose employers are not obligated by immigration law to provide accommodation (finally, a second good point about Korea). This in and of itself does not cause me to question in any way the journalistic quality of the writer, nor indeed their quality as a human being. But then I read the first sentence of the story "Rents in major cities will rise by 50 per cent over the next four years, a new report predicts." Now, I'm infuriated. Now I have to question just what this person is doing as a journalist, for I am presented with one of two possibilities. One, the journalist lacks the basic mathematical knowledge to realise that a rent increase of 50% is not the same as doubling the rent paid. Or two, the journalist does not have sufficient command of the English language to realise that the word they used does not mean what they think it means (I wish I'd been able to phrase that so I could quote Inigo Montoya there, but my style and his don't quite mesh. Inconceivable, you might say, but it is so. Anybody want a peanut?) In either situation, this person should not be writing in a major (or even a minor) news source. When there is a contradiction this big in the first two lines of a story, one has to wonder just how much effort was put into the research and writing of the story.

I'm sure this is not exactly news to my small band of readers, but I felt the need to vent on this particular article, and to disparage News.com.au as a newsource. It provides the chicken mcnugget of news. Blech.

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The Salute

Right now in Australia there is only one salute that deserves the definite article. And that is "The Salute". Apparently Kevin Rudd saluted George W. Bush during his visit to America. For those who haven't seen it, the video is below. Please watch the bit with the salute and the bit of Kevin Rudd at a press conference just after that (up to about 45 seconds into the video).



First of all that is not a military style salute. I was in air cadets. A proper salute is much more energetic and rigid than that. That is more of a wave than a salute. I don't really get what the big deal is all about.

Second, does Kevin Rudd at the press conference remind anyone else of David Brent, the boss from the British version of the office. Just the wheezing laugh and the way he says "I was just saying hello... to the president of the United States of America" feel very David Brentish to me. It could be worse though. I'll renounce my citizenship the day a Prime Minister reminds me of Kath and Kim (not really, but I'll be quite unhappy).

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Tensions Building

The last week or so the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been a bit rambunctious. It has expelled a number of officials from the Republic of Korea, tested between 3 and 6 missiles near disputed waters, called the new president, Lee Myung-Bak, a suck up to George W Bush. They have also said that they are willing and able to launch a preemptive strike that would burn the Republic of Korea to ashes.

Why is the DPRK so antagonistic right now. Well, mainly because the new president doesn't seem to be such a pussy compared to his predecessors. The last two presidents have pursued a "sunshine" policy regarding the DPRK. This has essentially meant giving lots of money, business opportunities and food to the DPRK, in the hope that out of gratitude they will give up communism and join the community of respectable nations.

One of the results of this policy was that the DPRK now has nuclear weapons. Respectability and friendliness don't seem to have resulted from the previous policy. So the new president has said that future aid deals will be dependent on the DPRK making verifiable steps towards becoming a part of the civilised world. Nuclear disarmament is a key one of those steps. The rhetoric is being stepped up because president Lee is meeting George W later this month, and the Bush administration is putting more focus on dealing with the DPRK in the hopes of having some sort of positive legacy when he leaves the white house early next year.

So now I'm getting a little bit antsy about living in a country that is technically in a state of war with its northern neighbour. Not much, but a little. I am a fair distance from the border so I'd get a little bit of warning if anything were to happen. If the shit does hit the fan, I'd pack my stuff and catch the next available means of transportation down to Busan, from which I'd fly or boat to Japan, and from there away from the hostilities (it's good to have a plan).

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Science is Good

Well, actually, this is more engineering than science, but it is still a story of people looking at the world and asking "What if it was different?" Today's hero is a man who hated making his bed, and wondered how he could get out of it. This man didn't just leave it at that though. He designed a bed that makes itself.

He has developed a prototype, and is looking to commercialise his invention. Let me just say, he'll have at least one customer, provided the cost is not too much, and the mechanism is not too obvious. Arms that reach out from under the bed and make it would be ideal, but I feel this is not quite how the actual device works.

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Corrupt from the bottom up

Lately I've heard a few bits and pieces about corruption in Korea which is making me a bit dubious about aspects of the culture here.

The first thing was last week all the food stands that line the streets near work were missing. Occasionally one might have not been there for a day or two, but there have always been some. So the absence of all of them was notable. I found out that last week was the yearly crackdown on such food stalls around here. Apparently the stands are illegal and the people who run them don't pay all (any) of the tax they're meant to. They also apparently make payments to the local police office (it's just down the street) to make sure they look the other way.

Today in the newspaper I read about the results of number of audits of public companies (companies owned by the government). These audits showed massive inefficiency, bureaucracy increased under the guise of downsizing, huge slush funds, executive perks and more. Just before the president was sworn in, there was an investigation into allegations of corruption involving the president. There have also been investigations of big companies, with Samsung having been found to have a multi-million dollar slush fund to bribe government officials, and it is expected that many other companies follow the lead of one of Korea's biggest and most prestigious firm.

And here I am seemingly criticizing all this from my lofty perch. But I too am dirtied in all this corruption. The national pension office has a signed contract that says I work less than 80 hours a month and get paid less than I do, so that I don't have to pay into the national pension plan, which would cost me about 5% of my pay, and get a chunk of my monthly pay in cash, so that my tax records match the alleged contract, but I still get the right amount of money. Well, if I'm pissed off with the company when I leave I know what to do to get back at them. A nice anonymous email sent a month or two after I'm gone (without providing any contact details) would be a nice way to work off any lingering resentment (I don't anticipate this being the case, although if I could mess up some students, there have been a few that have really bugged me).

Anyway, the all encompassing corruption seems to be endemic in Korea. It seems to happen at all levels, and while it is occasionally punished, this almost seems likely people are being punished for being caught or for being too greedy, rather than for the actual corruption. How can the rule of law be maintained where there are illegal food stands on every street? How can the police be trusted, if they are willing to accept small bribes to overlook small crimes? How can we know that they won't take a big bribe to overlook a big crime? Such systematic corruption is ill-suited to the modern world, and should be something that is vigorously hunted down, and not accepted as part of the way things work.

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Surely There's a Better Way?

I've just read about the result of the recent local elections in Conclurry. Apparently the votes were tied 428 a piece between Businessman Andrew Daniels and former councillor John Swalling. After a recount, the votes were still tied. So they did what the official Electoral Commission rules stated, and draw a name out of a hat. Apparently, this also happened in Winton.

In the case of such a close election, I hardly think it is fair to the electorate as a whole to reduce the entire affair to chance. And it is kind of ridiculous that a random draw is part of the official rules for elections. Especially when there are reports of missing postal votes.

Really there should be a new election. For a start, this would likely get more people involved in the election. Since mandatory voting did not apply to a local election, and given the low number of votes (856), I think it's safe to say that not everyone voted (even though it's a backwards nowhere kind of place (no hard feelings Conclurry), I'm sure there are more eligible voters who didn't vote. If there were to be a new election, I think more people would vote knowing how close it was, and that the value of their vote will be even more important than usual.

Random selection can also lead to acrimonious feelings in the community. There will always be the feeling among some that the winner didn't really win, and shouldn't be mayor. It is when things are close that we need to be most certain. Random chance does not help that.

My last objection is that democracy is meant to be the will of the people. No dice or draw from a hat can truly represent the will of the people.

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