Grey Matter

A New Broom

I checked Pivot's support forums to see if there was any way to clean out large numbers of spam comments. As expected, someone else had raised the question. The answer was "manually." Well, I'm sorry, but deleting several hundred spam comments with at least three clicks per deletion is not a task I want to do manually.

So I did what any decent programmer would do and wrote myself a quick and dirty application to search and delete all the comments in a specified range. While I was at it, I added a function for disabling comments on old posts. (And when I eventually get around to migrating my blog to different blog software, I'll use the same code for exporting.)

I'll do what I can to minimize spam comments, but I don't dread them now, because the clean-up is quick and easy.

Tedious script-kiddies

The relentless script-kiddies are at it again. Pivot (the weblogging tool I'm using for this) is too vulnerable to attack and has no easy facilities for clearing out bulk comments once they've gotten past the (not so effective) spammer shields.

I'll disable comments while I consider my options.


Tentatively re-enabled.

Presumption of guilt?

The US "war" on terror and erosion of freedom is fascinating to watch.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

While I grudgingly accept the inevitability of surveillance systems for security, the presumption of guilt by America's Homeland Security should be ringing alarm bells everywhere. Why the money freeze? Is it to stop potential terrorists from purchasing JCPenney's new range of multi-pocketed suicide bomber apparel?

New Cyborg Toys

"They're mindless monsters. They're killing machines. Controlling their movements is a good thing."

"Just giving them directions every now and then is better than killing them and eating them."

"They're just automatons. Really. They don't really have brains like us. Just bunches of interconnected nerves."

"We're not really even controlling them. Just encouraging them to go where we want them to."

"Hey, nobody complains when we put a bit in a horse's mouth and make it go where we want it to."

"Animals don't matter because they don't have souls."

"We're doing it to save American lives."

I wonder what the rationalizations would be if this project were officially exposed to the public. When you take a shark, fit it with a camera, control its brain by remote control, and plan in the future to be able to monitor its senses, you're creating a cyborg. You've made the ethical decision to re-engineer an animal and take control of its actions. All that remains is to think up justifications and sound bites for the PR campaign.

Do sharks feel pain or frustration? If so, how much pain would be acceptable? Does the defense department even have an ethics department?

And what about animal spies? How long before we have wired-up gulls for aerial surveillance? I don't fear the coming of ubiquitous surveillance, whether it be by animal-based cyborgs or a multiplicity of stationary hidden cameras. Why? Because I figure it's inevitable. The best we can do is try to limit its abuse. Given the way the US government is currently respecting the privacy of its citizens (i.e. happy to throw away the constitution by claiming they are at "war"), there is little chance of any future privacy. Maybe honesty and sanity will hold out a little longer here in Australia. Still, it's only a matter of time. We'll learn to live with it, just as we've come to live with the hidden security cameras in shops.


I blogged too soon. It is public and they have ethical approval (details not stated).

My first IDE

It only took one image to plummet me back into the days of my childhood--one image that scrolled into view on Boing Boing and made me exclaim, "Oh wow!"

Go take a look at this and you'll see what a geek I was in primary school. Three bits. Count them. Three whole bits. All the whole numbers you could ever want (from 0 to 7).

Geek & Goth Valentines

Valentine's Day approaches. It's that special time of year when you can express your undying love for...

florists, greeting card companies, and chocolate manufacturers. (I do profess a certain fondness for the last.) This year I shall do my part to diminish the profits of card companies by providing, free of charge, an assortment of short verses that you may use in hand-crafted missives to your Valentine. These verses are guaranteed to claim the hearts of their recipients (or your money back).

Geek Valentines (Budget Constrained)

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Until I get work
Here's a cheap IOU.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm allergic to both
So will text graphics do?
 --<---<--@

Geek Valentines (Hormone Driven)

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Come and party tonight
Bring your twin sister too.

Lan-party for two. Early start.
Beat my frag-count: we'll dine, a la carte,
At the Hilton, first class.
But if I pwn your a$$
Then you pose for my comic book art.

Geek Valentines (Socially Challenged)

For you, here's a Valentine's card
To show my persistent regard.
I must (my friends said)
Get you out of my head,
But your webcam is making it hard.

Your insistent admirer is me.
Your beauty, it longs to be free.
Your elegant form
Leaves me tingling and warm
As I watch from your neighbour's oak tree.

Goth Valentines

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
But since they're not black
They're simply not you.

Roses are black,
Violets are black;
I've tailored your gift
With my airbrushing pack.

Blood is so red,
Lilies, so white;
Would you share my pain
On St Valentine's night?

Blood is so red,
Lilies, so white;
Your mood is so dark
You make midnight seem light.

Uncool Cat

Storm

Ahhhh, Melbourne! I sit at my keyboard with windows open to welcome the cool change.

Lights dim and flicker. Three out of four computers reboot pulling brave adventurers out of their otherworldly quests. My computer was lucky, having just enough capacitance to ride out the power glitch. Just as well too. I didn't want to have to restart the OEDILF.com backup, which has been taking an age.

It's 8:50pm and there's still enough light to see leaves and small branches being blown up in the air over our neighbour's house. The storm's destructive, but I welcome it. After 41 degree heat yesterday and 43 today, the sudden cool is bliss—violent bliss, but one takes what one can get.

The backup's nearly done now. 120Mb so far. Oh, fragile overhead powerlines, hold out for another few meg, please.

Evidence of the Designer

In the Sydney Morning Age this morning:

Mathematical Evidence of a Designer

"There's no use saying pigs can't fly when you see them catching swallows," quips an Australian scientist about his ground breaking work on Intelligent Design. Dr Christian Ruse of the University of Woolloomooloo in Sydney has been working quietly on complexity theory for the last fifteen years, and "bloody scientific revolution" are the words he uses to describe what is about to happen.

"Pioneers of the Intelligent Design movement, like Dr William Dembski and Dr Michael Behe, have been extraordinarily patient and committed. Those diggers have stood up and faced the barrage thrown at them by the ultra-conservative establishment. They've taken a few flesh-wounds but they're still standing tall. While they've born the brunt of the political storm, nerds like me can get on with the job of serious ID research."

Dr Ruse's discovery is bound to upset the closed minds of traditional science, and as he says, "inject chaos into academia's smug meritocracy." The evidence he's uncovered provides unmistakable mathematical proof of a designer's hand in nature. Dr Ruse says, with understandable exuberance, "Dr Behe identified the flagellar motor in the bacterial flagellum, and I've found one of the designer's blueprints for it in the mathematics of the Mandelbrot Set! Something clicked when I saw the Budding Turbines area of the Set. They're all there, tiny machines layed out in elegant mathematical precision!"

The Mandelbrot Set, first shown in graphic detail by Benoît Mandelbrot, has bemused artists, mathematicians and philosophers for the last three decades. It's only through the work of Dr Ruse that we can begin to glimpse the significance of the infinite complexity contained in the Set. And where else would we expect to find evidence of the designer but at the intersection of mathematics and art, at the boundaries of philosophy and aesthetics?

"It's an area that many scientists find daunting. There is just so much detail and so many ways to look at it. Mysteries lie just beneath the surface of the Set and nobody knows they're even there. You have to have some idea of what you're looking for before you start, but you must, must, must keep a completely open mind at the same time," emphasizes Ruse.

What else lies hidden within the chaos of fractals? Dr Ruse is optimistic about his collaboration on sea horse anatomy with zoologist Dr Ophelia Rorschach, although he was reluctant to discuss their findings at this early stage. He was also unwilling to name the many other researchers who are following up on his discovery. "The political environment is still too hostile," he says, "and it's better that they be allowed to continue their research in peace rather than attracting the nay-sayer sharks before they're ready for them."

There is a tide in the affairs of science and, in good Australian form, Chris Ruse is determined to surf it, regardless of the sharks. Mark my words. Christian Ruse will be remembered for centuries to come.

Laze, laze

Go and read
HOLY TANGO
ANTHOLOGY
of LITERATURE

By Hyena Fanciers Francis Heaney

Here's a brief glimpse of his brilliance:

LIKABLE WILMA
WILLIAM BLAKE

Wilma, Wilma, in thy blouse,
Red-haired prehistoric spouse,
What immortal animator
Was thy slender waist’s creator?

When the Rubble clan moved in,
Was Betty jealous of thy skin,
Thy noble nose, thy dimpled knee?
Did he who penciled Fred draw thee?

Wilma, Wilma, burning bright, ye
Cartoon goddess Aphrodite,
Was it Hanna or Barbera
Made thee hot as some caldera?

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