http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22917174-5005961,00.html Is this the sort of headline people usually read in newspapers? Have I just not been noticing? Anyway, I’m glad our galaxy is bisexual and don’t at all suspect that it’s doing it just to be trendy.

Man, http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com looks good in Safari.

I wrote a small blogging engine to manage my text files. It uses Markdown for formatting and the MetaWeblog API for compatibility with blogging clients. It’s small and easy to use. Give it a try if you’ve got a bunch of text files to manage. Special thanks to Red Sweater software for MarsEdit, which made it very easy to debug; and to Bryn’s parents for Bryn, who first mentioned blogulation.

http://code.nyloncactus.com/blogulator/

Iwata: So you made the game read the data waveform of the streaming music so that it could trigger the sound effects at the correct time?

Kawamura: This gets a little technical; the game synchronises MIDI data with the streaming data, and this is used to process the sound effects at the right time. When Mario shoots off from the Sling Star, for example, harp music plays as a sound effect. If you listen carefully, this harp will sound in perfect timing with the background music. This kind of technique rarely gets noticed however.

— From a discussion of Super Mario Galaxy’s music 

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/12/which_brain_hemisphe.html I often wondered why my right hand would be asleep on its pillow while my left hand would be up at all hours, watching crappy TV and munching on Doritos. Now I know.

(I found this lying around - N)

Driving to and from Canberra I sometimes take a break from my usual 3-hours-of-video-game-music-remixes partyfest and listen to a podcast or two instead. I'm not sure that it's a good idea because I then frequently want to make notes on what I'm listening to, which would be a life-limiting move at 110 kilometres per hour. For example, this weeks' episode of The philosopher's zone had a pretty interesting discussion of the concept of "freedom" in the context of the abolition of slavery. Up until quite recently, relatively, people were still making the argument that slaves were more free than paid workers. This is a pretty intruiging concept to modern ears and comes down, predictably, to what it means to be free.

You can approach the definition of "freedom" in two ways. The first might be in terms of what freedom is not -- a "negative approach". Taking this track, one might say that freedom implies a lack of constraints: you are free if nobody prevents you from doing what you want to do. This seems to be a pretty common definition (it's basically the one in the dictionary).

Another (much trickier) definition is to take the positive approach and attempt to nail down what freedom is, rather than what it is not. Perhaps "being able to realise your full potential" is a reasonable start at this definition. The 20th-century political philosopher Isiah Berlin is most famous for describing these two approaches in Two Concepts of Liberty. Berlin argues that, at least in a political context, the positive approach to a definition of freedom is suspect: it contains within it some definition of human characteristics, which political parties may freely disagree upon (and thus abuse).

In fact, this definition forms the crux of the "slaves are more free" argument -- they are guaranteed food and shelter and, if their master is kind, may live well their whole lives. But even "negative freedom" as presented above is subject to the same problem: you may still have a master, but he may choose not to impose any constraints.

In response to this problem there has been a recent revival of the centuries-old concept of the "Republican concept of liberty", which says that one is free "not to the extent that nobody as a matter of fact interferes with me, but to the extent that [one] does not live under the arbitrary will of another person".

Alan Saunders: So, in Isaiah Berlin's concept of negative liberty I could be free, even though I were a slave, simply because my master decided not to impose constraints upon me, whereas in the republican concept of liberty, I wouldn't be free, simply because I was a slave; is that what it amounts to?

Sue Mendus: That's what it amounts to, exactly that.

(Snipped from the full transcript.)

Freedom is rather a core concept in Western (and, I guess, all) political systems: how strange that the best definition we have is in terms of what it is not.

I’m not sure what I’m least happy about: that I suggested I buy my aunt and her partner a copy of “The Illustrated Pop-Up Karma Sutra” for Christmas, that my mother thought it was a fantastic idea, or that the book was invented by the authors of Red Dwarf and doesn’t actually exist.

Now I'm seeing things. Where the hell did they come from? Is this some sort of virus? A computer bug? I knew I shouldn't have upgraded my OS. Everything worked just fine on the old version. It's definitely not a feature. "New with OS X Leopard: Oompa-loompas."

Get a grip, Christine. Computers can't do that. Breathe. Relax.

OK, they're still there. Don't panic. What causes that? Paracetamol? Maybe that fifth Panadol pushed me over the edge. Maybe this is the worst tension headache I've ever had.

Maybe it was those oysters at lunch.

God, they're walking around on the table. Fuck Gary. If he wasn't such an arsehole I wouldn't be here working myself into the ground in the first place. Him and that prissy bitch with the tits. That's fine. If he wants a fight, I'll give him a fight. Get these mini-fashionistas here to sneak into her flat and give her the shock of her stupid, bimbo life.

Man, I could really use a drink. Hey, you little guys. Want an adventure? Yeah? Get into my handbag. Come on. We've got work to do.

Where were they before, I wondered, all these people who are now ‘in computers’? There is an argument to say that they were not born, but I think they were born, and that they were something else. Illiterates certainly, so their stories were never told and their views never recorded. Mad shepherds, perhaps? Unmarried relatives who dwelt on verandahs? Or new arrivals in town with strange pasts? All waiting for their time to come.

— Alexandra Long, “The Doctor Daddy”  

— Rusty Russel

I recently discovered tumblr -- it's another one of those miniblogging sites. I loved the layout so I started a tumblr site at flonk.lardcave.net. Posts there are less edited, and more random, than posts here.

 

Frank Rubin published a criticism of Dijkstra’s letter in the March 1987 CACM where it appeared under the title “‘GOTO Considered Harmful’ Considered Harmful”. The May 1987 CACM printed further replies, both for and against, under the title “‘“GOTO Considered Harmful” Considered Harmful’ Considered Harmful?”. Dijkstra’s own response to this controversy was titled “On a somewhat disappointing correspondence”.

 

— Wikipedia/Considered Harmful 

Dumptool is a Python port of DUMPTOOL.EXE, which is the Windows-only DVD copying program for the Wiikey mod chip. Runs on Linux, should work on Mac. I just wrote it. If you know what all of this means: congratulations, you’re a nerd; here’s the home page. If you don’t know what all of this means: hi! How are you?

Part of on ongoing series of flippant comments that would have sounded far more daring and controversial two years ago. Seriously, I have yet to find something textual using a tag that I wouldn’t have found faster using Google. In fact I sometimes Google my del.icio.us bookmarks rather than try to figure out what tag I used.

Perhaps you’ve wondered what this means. I have! Well, it means to display one’s disrespect for something by doing something insulting. Great! All clear.

But what does it mean? Well, nobody knows. Maybe it comes from putting your thumb on your nose and sighting down your fingers at your adversary, in which case “snook” might have come from “snout” and “cock” might refer to the coxcomb shape of the hand. “Wrong sort of snook. Possibly the wrong sort of cock, too,” offers worldwidewords, not particularly helpfully. Phrases.org.uk isn’t much better, but it does have an informative diagram.

— Quotes from the Internet, part 1

I recently had one of those interesting moments where I realised that not only was I making assumptions which I hadn’t thought about, but those assumptions were terribly wrong. There’s a really interesting collection of psychological experiments here which explains this — it’s number 6, false consensus bias.

This holiday season girls want Barbies and boys want Transformers, at least according to a report by the American National Retail Federation. This news made Alice (of Wonderland) cry, but it’s not all stereotypes and tragedy. Here’s the complete list of top toys for girls — pick the odd one out:

1. Barbie
2. Bratz
3. Dolls (generic)
4. Dora the Explorer
5. Disney Princess
6. Disney Hannah Montana
7. Nintendo Wii
8. Webkinz
9. Elmo
10. American Girl

That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? The Wii up there surrounded by dolls and stuffed toys? Here’s the boys’ list, for comparison:

1. Transformers
2. Video games
3. Nintendo Wii
4. Cars (generic)
5. Spider-Man
6. LEGO
7. Thomas the Tank Engine
8. Xbox 360
9. Elmo
10. Remote Controlled Vehicles

Weirdly, I couldn’t find out what age range they surveyed, though judging from the type of toys I’d guess 3-12.