Noticing what people are reading doesn’t exactly qualify as “eavesdropping,” but on the train this morning I saw a guy reading a book called The Shack, another reading a book titled Vodka, and a third reading On The Road. My brain could not resist putting the books all together and creating a new fake genre called Hobo Lit.

While looking at genetic chimerism after trying to find more examples of immortal cell lines (such as HeLa) I discovered this intriguing mating behaviour of certain anglerfish, which reads like bad sci fi:

The digestive system of male fish degenerates after maturity, prompting him to seek a female. Having found one, the male bites into her and releases an enzyme that fuses his mouthparts with her skin. This fusion occurs down to the blood vessel level, so the fish end up sharing a circulatory system. Most of the male’s organs then atrophy, leaving a pair of gonads which release sperm when the female is ready to spawn (hormonally-controlled). 

Hot.

‘Women!’ echoed Rosemary on a different note. ‘I hate the way men are always talking about WOMEN. “Women do this,” and “WOMEN do that”—as though all women were exactly the same!’ 

‘Of course all women are the same! What does any woman want except a safe income and two babies and a semi-detached villa in Putney with an aspidistra in the window?’ 

‘Oh, you and your aspidistras!’ 

‘On the contrary, YOUR aspidistras. You’re the sex that cultivates them.’ 

— Gender-role tension in George Orwell’s Keep The Aspidistra Flying

It turns out that there are more taxes in Australia than there are northern hairy nosed wombats. Clearly taxes are not an endangered species.

If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by and by;
Or any other reason why.

— Henry Aldrich (but he wrote it in Latin)

Any comments before I post it?

Look, here I am, at home, wearing a hat!

However, this is a far better hat, courtesy Catie.

I just found this (via Mind Hacks). Apparently you only understand the garbled version after listening to the non-garbled version, but I didn't have any problem understanding the garbled version straight-off. I don't think I have magical ears, so I'm keen to find out if the same applies to you!

I didn't get the picture version, though.

UPDATE: I just browsed the linked paper, and apparently knowing that what you're hearing is supposed to be speech can be enough to work out what is being said. So the Mind Hacks site is a little misleading.

UPDATE 2: I downloaded the software and made my own recording.

EXT. A SMALL CAFE IN THE CITY. LUNCH-HOUR RUSH.

DANIEL DENNETT sits opposite THOMAS NAGEL. NAGEL is dressed casually. DENNETT is dressed rather sharply (business suit?), but slouches in his chair. He pokes at his lunch, which consists of two bowls: one filled with a lumpy soup, and one completely empty. 

NAGEL: Look, you wanted soup, so I got you soup of the day. It's not my fault you got two bowls, and it's not my fault that the soup du jour turned out to be quail. Who would have thought, at this dive?

DENNETT: I can't tell which one I want.

NAGEL: It's a simple question.

DENNETT: For you maybe.

NAGEL: Just send it back if you don't like it.

DENNETT: I like quail. I just...

NAGEL: What?

DENNETT: Well they're both sort of quail-ey.

NAGEL: That's even easier, if you'll just listen to me! Which one is quailey-er?

DENNETT stares at the bowls ferociously. The conversation is over for NAGEL, who grins briefly, leans back, and tucks in his serviette.

DENNETT: (Slowly) Urrrrrrrrr!

DENNETT clambers over the table and begins to eat NAGEL's brain.

FADE OUT.

Feelings and experiences vary widely. For example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry.

- The poor tormented souls at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The first time I heard W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues", which begins

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

I thought it was pretty strange that Auden would make such a tasteless connection between dog bones and funerals. I had a post written out asking if this connection was as obvious to everyone else and whether they thought the poet knew about it BUT then Catie and I did some research and it turns out that the reason it sounds so strange is because the poem is actually a joke -- or at least the first part of it started off as one. The first two stanzas come from Auden's play "The Ascent of F6" and are apparently read as a satirical eulogy for a politician. This actually makes me feel a lot better about it, since the alternative was that it was just bad poetry.

So there you go.

Parliamentary question time yesterday was full of grandstanding disguised as "questions" about the Government's decision to guarantee bank deposits. A lot of the focus was on Treasury secretary Ken Henry, who (it is claimed) misrepresented the opinion of the Reserve Bank governor to Kevin Rudd (more info).

I'd just like to share with you this part of a hilarious speech by Mr. Gray, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, who weighs in with his own opinion on Liberal Party trashing of public servants:

Mr GRAY- [...] The Leader of the Opposition and shadow Treasurer are lawyers. They are used to mastering a brief without engaging in morality, ethics or propriety. They are lawyers; they prosecute their brief. They turned up in this place on the first day, I have no doubt, thinking they had all the integrity of Atticus Finch. No, they do not. They are just grubby politicians seeking a vote under whatever rock they can find it under by creating whatever nervousness and instability they can create in our 

banking system. 

Mr Robert—A Labor politician talks about grubby politicians? You guys are the ultimate grubs!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. AR Bevis)— Order! The parliamentary secretary will be heard in silence. As much as it would pain me, I will remove you if you keep it up. 

Mr GRAY—I notice those opposite reserve for this parliament the same lack of courtesy that they do for senior public servants—the same lack of regard that they reserved for our significant prudential institutions like the Reserve Bank when they lined up to appoint their own donors as members. It is why they turn around and attack the Secretary to the Treasury this week. It is why they turn around and attack the Reserve Bank itself. It is why those opposite impugn the integrity of public servants and prudential regulators, most of whom they appointed. It is why they feel no twinge of conscience as they set about doing damage, because the damage to our banking system will, those members opposite hope, deliver a vote dividend. It will lift their profile. Damage the banks, win votes is the equation. Who cares about the damage? Damage to whom? To the very people those opposite would seek to represent. They also seek to damage the very character of the Secretary to the Treasury. We have seen the Leader of the Opposition call upon the government to sack the Secretary to the Treasury for doing his job. This is the very same Secretary to the Treasury who has served multiple federal governments. He served the Hawke government and the Keating government. He served the Howard government with great distinction. One might wonder why they so hate the Secretary to the Treasury. I wondered that myself. Could it be his work ethic—he has one; they don’t? Could it be his ethics— he has them; they don’t? Could it be his character—he has one; they don’t? Could it be that he understands that they do not understand the issues that they drag around our parliament and community like a dead rat? 

For the thrilling conclusion consult Wednesday's Hansard (1.8MB PDF) and search for "dead rat".

Today I took a break from fixing non-existent bugs to attend the Crows Nest Fair with Catie (and, unexpectedly but pleasantly, Peter). I did like the book stall with one section labelled "women's books" and another labelled "blokes", but I was a little disappointed overall.

Eventually I decided to stop looking at books and T-shirts and instead to collect as much religious material as people were willing to hand me. I didn't do a great job at this, but I was very polite about it and ended up with four separate sets of flyers.

Northside Community Church: Definitely has the nicest show bag. Includes "Christianity explained", which was helpful. Includes business-card-sized invitation to church.

NCA Church: Slogan "ordinary people -- extraordinary God" which I thought pretty snappy. Includes similar business-card-sized invitation to church, which somewhat detracted from the novelty of the idea. Also includes a small chewy sweet.

Falun Gong: Apparently this is a "spirituality practise" rather than a religion. In any case, I really just got a newsletter talking about Falun Gong for people who know what Falun Gong is, which was both nice (no advertising) and confusing (what is it?)

Twelve Tribes: Last time I visited the fair, followers from this group were holding hands and dancing around in a circle to music. They were at it for hours, which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately this year there was no dancing, just a couple of people selling bread and distributing "The Voice", which includes a fun story about our responsibility towards the environment.

EDIT: Later I bought some honeycomb from "Poppy's Honey", and I asked Poppy how long it would last. She rolled her eyes, laughed, and said "This? Longer than religion." But I put it in the fridge anyway.

And now for some more programming advice. Today I spent a long time trying to track down a bug in my circular buffer implementation. These were the conditions:

• The bug manifested as a buffer entry apparently being 1 number larger than it should be (when writing consecutive integers into the buffer);
• It only showed up when the producer and consumer were in separate processes or threads;
• Whenever it appeared, the consumer had just wrapped around the buffer;
• The problem wasn't to do with insufficient locking.

I'll spare you the painful details: it turned out to be a bug in my test code, in which the test sometimes ended up writing non-consecutive numbers. The wraparound condition, multiprocessing requirement, consistently-being-off-by-one factor? All spurious. The buffer works perfectly and actually seems to be correct even without any locks (though this is because of a happy, but difficult to control, confluence of pro-atomic hardware and compiler factors as I am not explicitly doing atomic locking). 

There is no moral for this one (in direct contradiction of the first sentence of this post), apart from "check your test code again" and "Nicholas is an idiot".

Is the hierarchical classification scheme for organisms really useful any more, or are people just doing it for fun?

Finchley Central is a non-game described by Anatole Beck and David Fowler in Manifold:

Two players alternate naming the stations on the London Underground. The first to say 'Finchley Central' wins. It is clear that the 'best' time to say 'Finchley Central' is exactly before your opponent does. Failing that, it is good that he should be considering it. You could, of course, say 'Finchley Central' on your second turn. In that case, your opponent puffs on his cigarette and says, 'Well, ...' Shame on you.

(via Metamagical Themas)

Natureworks, Wikipedia.