With the mysterious vanishment of the original webhost for davidchess.com and theogeny.com, all of my usual weblog reader-input stuff has stopped working. So I have started this here QuickTopic place to fill that role, at least for the time being. Anything posted here will be mailed off to me, and will become fodder for the weblog (which is located, for the moment, at ceoln.pitas.com). You can even respond to each other's messages here! An odd but potentially interesting idea...

DC

Check one two, check one two.

Phhht, phht.

Is this thing on?

But I don't want to be a pie.

Nifty - it's a little like camping out in the elevator of a building that's lost power. I just happen to have a pocket full of marshmallows; who's got a book of matches?

Thanks for getting this makeshift site up so quickly. It's nice to be living in the future, where we can do that. I would publicize your new URL in a second if I had a weblog. But as it is I hope you find a new hosting solution soon! What a bummer! I hope they didn't run off with too much of your money (I guess you can probably get a refund via your credit card company)

Blearily & incoherently yours, Gaw

Hope you, too, have a weblog again soon! Ian of whalley.org (who seems to have left OnePine Just in Time) is looking into how I might bail out to the same place he bailed out to; sounds sort of promising. Wresting the whois information and DNS records away from onepine may take some work, though, and I'm real real lazy...

I was Clever and Saved Money by paying onepine a year at a time. So the aliens probably have it all now, in their little alien bank accounts.

There's nothing like roughing it. Beauty eh.

Cheers from wood s lot

Good to see you back, even if a little makeshift. We were at this point going to make some cheap crack about camping, but we seem temporarily to be at a loss; choked up as we are at seeing one of our favourite procrastinations return.

I appreciate the heads up re the re-location of D. Chess's Log, and intend to update the few places we have included a
link to same. Not certain that pitas is the place to be for
very long, appears to be getting squirrel-lier each day, &
it's pity actually, used to be so steady and dependable...

   best regards from the tawdry talent behind
        d'monkey

Well, any old port in a storm. Missed you the last couple of days, and had to phone. The log is great for keeping up with family and the grandkids.

I think most any new web supplier can take care of the domain transfer with no trouble. I don't think one-pine would have any say about it.

Since I have my domains parked at mydomain.com, when I had a major isp move, it was a simple matter of changing the redirection.

Welcome back on the air!

WBC

Just to say thanks for the note on your new location.

It's good to see you on-line once more.

I'll attempt to work in a subtle reference to your new
location in my own 'log.

ttfn,
Michael.

Just a note to let you know that I tracked you down. Thanks for the email. Boy, this Internet thing sucks, doesn't it? Maybe someday it will be redesigned in a sensible fashion, but I doubt it.

Could be worse, you could have been using excite@doomed.

It's kinda fun, really. Like huddling around the dinner table with candles, waiting for the power to come back on.

Except that you have to send faxes to NSI...

The difference between the old posting method and the new:
The old way, I knew only you would read the post (unless you chose to copy it into the next edition of the log).
The new way I know it's open to all to read, so I feel I'm talking to a different audiance (does this thing have a spell checker?).

Most of the time I used e-mail anyway, except for brief expoundments. (new word, I just made up)
WBC

I miss your old home! But I'm glad there's this temporary one. Good luck in the blogging wilderness!

doesn't Network Solution, like, suck axle-sludge ?

I was all looking forward to reading The Novel finally (I had put off looking at it until you were done), and now your site is hosed. :(

Will you be making it available somewhere to read for those of us who are eager to devour it?

[my own novel has been put on indefinite hold due to other projects jumping ahead of it in line (such as finding a job), but it'll be out some decade or other. As long as I don't die first...]

Thanks for that wonderful link: http://kerneltrap.org/article.php?sid=398
makes very interesting and entertaining reading!
WBC

one can add an address to your yahoogroups id, then change one's subscriptions to use that address, not the old one, then delete the old address. if one expects the old address to come back, don't do the last step. (ever run across one of those people that use the term "addy" for address?)

one must use the yahoogroups website to do this, I think.

Ah, thanks extremely! Turns out I hadn't "verified" any other email address, so only the non-working one was being offered. But now I have sacrificed the proper chickens to Yahoo, and all I have left to do is go individually to each of the fourteen (!) groups that I subscribe to and change the email address. Pheh! *8)

"I've learned stuff about myself as a writer, and about the writing process."

Namely?

Hee. I'm one of my favorite paintings, too, but mine is the Garden of Earthly Delights. A print of which hangs over my bed, even. Startlingly accurate test--on the basis of an admittedly teeny-weeny sample of two. Anyone else?

Sample #3 for the Art Test: It does what most of these tests do to me, which is force me to choose between two things which are *both* true for me. Argh! Personality tests are the worst on this... but I digress.

I picked one combination of traits that were true about me, and it said I was Mondrian's Composition A. Bleagh. Another combination said I was Munch's The Scream, which made me laugh, frankly. :) Yet another combination said I was Monet's Waterlilies. That's all right I suppose, but certainly not spot-on.

I need to find out what combination results in Ingres's The Spring, since that's what's hanging over my bed. Or maybe that's not a possible outcome. I'd take Renoir's The Boating Party, happily. :) (especially since I saw the movie Amelie). I've had a poster of that over the mantle for awhile now (and I've even seen it in person, woo woo!).

Edited by author 12-11-2001 08:59 AM
The Art Test is done entirely in JavaScript in the source of the page, so a handy View Source reveals that there are only thirteen possible answers. Links:
[monalisa scream starry lizards memory venus waterlilies earthly wave dance composition cave musicians]

Plurp seems to have re-existed itself automagically, though I still can't get back to davidchess.com. Does Steve know? Have there been "developments"?

Ah, look at that! Steve seems to have already fled to the same place that Ian fled to. He was lucky in that by some chance he was registered with "dotster" rather than Netsol, and dotster apparently answers their faxes faster.

At least I'm guessing from this evening's 'ping' results that that's what's going on...

Um, the person who conceived of "Fuck Day" is too shy to say "vagina" in casual conversation? Put your money where your mouth is, or something like that. Until then, I'm too shy to use "fuck" in my blog.

(OK, you got me, I don't have a blog. But if I did...)

Hm, some interesting blog fodder there! Two orthogonal thoughts: (1) writing something in the log is entirely different from uttering it in face-to-face conversation, and (2) "fuck" has entirely different vibes than "vagina"; I can say "fuck" without much trouble even in f2f conversation. "Vagina" is much more daunting. I wonder if the Monologues address this issue?

Certainly, writing "fuck" in a blog may be less uncomfortable than saying "vagina" face-to-face. But doesn't the rationale behind "Fuck Day" apply equally well to saying "vagina" face-to-face? I mean, the idea was to use "fuck" in spite of its being uncomfortable, and not because it was only moderately uncomfortable, right?

Otherwise, I'll argue that it is as unpleasant for me to use "fuck" in my (hypothetical) blog as it is for you to use "vagina" in conversation, and thus I should be exempt from Fuck Day.

I'd probably have an easier time saying vagina face to face if it were pronounced differently--the way I assumed it should be pronounced the first time I gave it a try back when I was eleven--accent on the first syllable and a short "i" sound. Makes the word a lot softer and less overt. As it is, I don't say vagina or fuck except in very private situations, and I know how to pronounce fuck just fine, but there are other words that face to face I'm even more uneasy about. Inchoate, for example.

I would have an easier time saying "kalo mau bobo jangan" than mispronouncing words associated with various genitalia. Do you have a pet name for the word "vagina"? I do. "Chuck, Chuck, Bo Buck, Banana Fana ..." I sing that while watching Titanic late at night. Try it some time.

Regarding Big Brother Ashcroft's statement (blogged by Dave on Dec. 13) "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists."

I only just now realized what the only response to this must be:

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

(Patrick Henry, Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1765)

Since you still can't get the davidchess.com references, how about posting the ###.###.###.### raw number. Then we could see everything while the troublesome world gets around to reindexing?

Since it's a virtual domain, that wouldn't actually work; you won't be able to see the site unless you go to the right IP address *and* the browser thinks of itself as visiting [www.]davidchess.com.

For the adventurous, if you add:

  217.158.56.33 www.davidchess.com
  217.158.56.33 davidchess.com

to your hosts file (which, on a Windows machine, may be hidden in something horrible like "\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"), you may be able to see the site as it currently exists. You'll want to take those lines out again once the site's really available, though, in case the IP address ever has to change again...

It works like a charm!
I have my hosts list redily available since I'm constantly experimenting with my home network. So it took me 2 sec. to enter it and it worked! And, as you implied, a direct entry put me at the door of your isp without a name or a password.

Of course www.davidchess.com is stuck on November 28, just before it died. I expect you will be putting the new stuff in before long.

Interesting experiment though.

I have Mandrake Linux working fairly well on the new machine, but win98v2 is still a bit flakey. I had to limit ram to 512 mb in order to load the drivers for soundblaster live. But I find I'm having trouble with the computer locking up while recording audio to disk. I just moved the limit down to 448 mb and it seems to be working much better.

Linux seems to be happy using the whole 768 mb.

Hah! I only got two correct answers. Problem is I think the framers of the test are the true Satanists.

One audience member won the coveted role of “Butch For a Day.”

Just scored 21 on the AQ test...

Happy Christmas David!

Jules

Wowie kazowee! *8)

I've now brought davidchess.com pretty much up to date, for anyone adventurous enough to mess with the hosts file. I've also got the confirmation from netsol, so the site may actually resolve correctly without hosts-file munging sometime tomorrow. (theogeny.com seems to be working even as we speak.)

DC (AQ 26)

Congratz! As of 3:30 pm thursday, all three are working without entries into hosts. There is a link error on the top of the news page. You mention that it is news for theogeny.com but the link at that point is theogeny.com without the www. and it doesn't work. The link in the first message is correctly linked to www.theogeny.com.

Hi Dave,

     Well, how's this for random serendipity? By way of introduction, I work for Lockheed-Martin in Owego; we used to be a happy part of the IBM family years ago, and I remember your name and posts from all the IBMPC fora. Recently I was rummaging through the attic and found my old AT with an IBM Music Feaure in it and thought I'd bring it out of retirement - I had laboriously scored the Hallelujah Chorus, and had a sudden urge to hear it. Once the machine was up I found some software for the card that you'd written. That got me to thinking - a perfectly good IMF wasted in an old machine, but is there a driver/software that I could use with it today on a new machine? A search of the web turned up - Yep, your name! Not so many degrees of separation.. Anyway, have a great holiday season, and best wishes for the new year!

Bill Owen: very cool! Did you get the IMF working? I've taken to just writing MIDI files and letting Windows play them. Can't mess around with the voices as much, but it's simple...

So can anyone (everyone?) see (www.)davidchess.com now? I've replaced the ceoln.pitas.com page under the assumption that you can. *8)

Well, the IMF works as well as ever in the AT with Compose and Playrec (remember them??), but that's as far as I have gone, at least for now. I may keep the AT as a power supply<G>, and use my other machine/soundcard to actually drive it. I should at least capture the MIDI strings I do have, and maybe clean them up. Compose was pretty limited, though the price was right! I do have the IMF Tech manual, so maybe someday... :)

Welcome back from the great void, Davey boy. But where's the input box? Surely this isn't "it"?

The real input box is back! Just like old times...

Heh! Looks like weblogs.com can't see davidchess.com at the moment. Odd place, the web...

I have an old AT sitting on top of the filing cabinet with a Music Feature. Haven't turned it on in a long time but can plug in the monitor controler and run it.

But it isn't amped up with speakers and such, so it will have to wait a while.

HELLO. I CAN SEE DAVID CHESS DOT COM.

What's a springy man?

Hey Dave, I just came across your site... looks like you still try to convince Intel processors doing compositions ;-)

Honestly, the results don't sound much better than in the old days when we were doing the "Music from Big Blue" series. Must have been about 10 years ago ... do you still have the tapes, I was just listening to one of 'em, funny stuff.

I don't have too much time recording these days, some older stuff is available on http://www.mp3.com/bitblue

Happy trails
Andy

Festoon!

Edited by author 01-04-2002 06:06 PM
Re: planes intersecting at a point, etc. The algebraic way to think about this (the way I think about it on a daily basis) is to associate geometric gadgets to subsets of polynomial rings called ideals. For example, every plane curve (say, y=x^2) corresponds to the set of polynomials that vanish there (in this example, all multiples of the polynomial f(x,y)=y-x^2 in the ring R[x,y]). The curve is then the set of points where f vanishes, and multiples of f are exactly the polynomials that vanish on the curve.

There's nothing stopping you from doing this in higher dimensions. For instance, the x-y plane in 3-space is the vanishing set of the polynomial f(x,y,z)=z. The x-y plane in 4-space (represented by the four axis variables x, y, z, t) is the vanishing set of the ideal (z,t) - that is, the set of all multiples of z and t.

There's lots lots more about this (try a quick search for "ideals and varieties"), but the crux of your question was finding the smallest n so that varieties of dimensions r and s meet in a point. This is answered by Serre's Theorem:

Theorem (Serre's Intersection Dimension Formula, ~1964). Let V and W be two varieties in affine n-space. Assume that dim(V \cap W) = 0. Then dim(V) + dim(W) \leq n.

So in particular, 6-space is the smallest one where two solids can meet in a point (or set of isolated points). An example is easy to give: the two "hyperplanes" defined by (x_1,x_2,x_3) and (x_4,x_5,x_6) are each 3-dim'l and meet only at the origin.

This is closely related to my research - feel free to ask more questions. Glad I could finally contribute something.

Graham
http://www.leuschke.org/log/

Whoa! Thanks much; I think I actually understand that. *8)

Given a set of polynomials, is there a straightforward way to tell what sort of gadget corresponds to the set of points where they all vanish? For at least some particular subset of sets of polynomials? That is, can one glance at a set of polynomials and say "oh, yeah, that's a plane sitting in a 7-space", or "that's a line in 3-space" or whatever?

Straightforward? Hope not, or I'm out of a job. Well, you can tell the dimension of the ambient space - just count the variables. You can also say a lot about the dimension of the defined variety - the algebraic version is the supremum of lengths of "prime" ideals between 0 and the defining ideal. So (x,y) in R[x,y,z] defines a two-dimensional gadget because 0 < (x) < (x,y) is a chain of prime ideals of length 2, and no longer one is possible. (The definition of "prime" is a bit technical.) There are computer implementations of this and lots more; the main programs are CoCoA and Macaulay.

I'm right this second attending the national meeting of the American Math Society and listening to talks about exactly this stuff. Maybe I should be doing a web-simulcast for public edification. Nah, maybe not.

It should also be pointed out, wrt the acne medicine, that the levels of suicidal/homocidal behavior referenced in the various articles on the subject haven't been established as higher than to be expected in a control group of non-medicated teenagers. Correlation vs. causality, baby!

"a prefatory flash-forward that assures you that no one important came to harm."

brings to mind:

"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time."
"What?"
"The eel doesn't get her...I'm explaining to you because you looked nervous."
"I...I wasn't nervous. Well, maybe I was a little bit concerned, but that's not the same thing."
"Because we can stop now if you want."
"No, you could read a little bit more... if you want."

I've deleted a very interesting message from "greg", because it had no spaces and messed up the formatting of the page somewhat. With a few spaces added back in, what greg said was: "kftuyrflukfudygsttuvgtytuqyq; gyqbghbggkbhjvbhvbjhb; uhbrgiuybyuuybyubiybuybuioiuypuybgygr uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggg ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bvvvvvvvvvvvvvvffrteutegbrtoetgiuto [yq[eyoitqrt [n9o780769876098269875693085670958376 03496073956pyhbby; gds.gahblkuqtuyirtyuibrvtuyirty854987 5687509856yuuyui; g; iouyruyprt8667476467476yghbgvsugvfwh gwu'9h"

I do not like this place. It is backwater. Its scent is odd. Why do I care? There are more places.

Google and the keyword "chess"

David, this page is on the 2nd page of google for the keyword "Chess". I am webmaster of www.chessworld.net, and was wondering if I could have a link from your site :-)

Did you know that the other sites are getting thousands of visitors a day?! :-)

If I could quickly annotate the 1st page for you:-

US Chess Federation
(no need to explain)

Internet Chess Club
This is certainly the most visited play chess site on the Internet

WELCOME TO FIDE NETWORK
Fide is the International Governing body for chess

The Week in Chess
This site is the number 1 news site for chess

etc

best wishes

Tryfon Gavriel
webmaster@chessworld.net

You use words of me. But this place is still odd scent. Why do I care? It is not of you.

its nice to see someone who likes to take pictures while driving, like me, maybe someday we'll have a head on collision and get 2 really great pictures out of it

I did'nt learn much about chess. But know when i talk to you the sun does shine.I agree the wicked witch should be sent away.At least i think thats what you said.You are all sounding more like me every day.Strange.

Edited by author 04-22-2002 05:34 PM
I didn't know much about chess. My friends always used to beat me. So I wrote a correspondence chess website so I could learn all about it. Now people I don't even know can beat me.
Steve
www.atlanticchess.com
maybe see you there..?

re: /m62
make that happen in front of a speed camera and you get 3.

medieval sux so bad it is really bad like medieval sux

chess is for losers and geeks. chess is the most boring game in the whole entire world. so all i have to say to that is that chess SUCKS.

   from
the chess and geek hater

( @ Y @ ) (()) 8=====D~

Another use for a proxy like MungProxy is to take control over internet appliances that call home -- like, say, a ReplayTV 4000. For things like that, you usually need a transparent proxy, but that's just a little different.

Just wondering if you ever found out "What the heck kind of name is "gastrocnemius" for a muscle, anyway? Sounds like a stomach disorder." One of my students asked me almost exactly the same thing, and I can't find any info about why this muscle got this name! Any help is appreciated, and you can email sunyprofessor@yahoo.com

Thnax!

eProf

David, I see that you've been looking for Codex Seraphinianus. Did you ever get one? My son just presented me with the brand new Italian edition for Father's Day. Very nice - just as finely produced as the original from Abbeyville Press.

Yep, I did eventually get one on eBay; see
"http://www.davidchess.com/words/log.20000107.html#20000112"
I have it in a nice glass-fronted cabinet in the living room, and once in awhile I take it out and read ("read") a few pages. Haven't done that in months, come to think of it; I really should. Thanks for reminding me. Isn't it cool?

Thanks, David for your kind mention of Mat Twassel's Calendar.atEROS. We hope to be providing a daily erotic moment to our readers for some time to come. :)
-- Joyce Melton

Is it an IQ test, having to view the source of your page to read what you think about Wolfram? (which is my snarky way of saying that your link is wonky)

Noffis. Noffis noffis noffis.

Still you are here. But Victoria Sinclair not here. Still smelling funny. What do you care of it? This is not of me. Balance.

I'm interested in what people do and why they do it. In how people communicate, and how they fail to. I'm interested in how phenomena that look like life can arise in substrates that we wouldn't normally consider living. In how art helps us make sense of life, and in what "make sense of life" could possibly mean. You interested in any of that stuff?


Yes...yes I am. I read that far down on your page. so you're not the only one. It is always a comfort to find similar human beings in this vast world. Wouldn't you say?
i like the understatement of lower case letters too
have a poem
chinthliss@hotmail.com

Happy fool
Eyes closed
Dancing blindly through the confetti of life
The sun shining brightly
Constant
 Day and night
Night and Day
Spilling gold at their feet
Their world but a mere playground
Supporting their every cartwheel
Without complaint
Music ringing in their ears
 A joyous melody so loud
 So loud
 The warnings of the countermelodies
 Left abandoned
 Only to bring forth
An unappreciated current
One by one
They fall
Suffocating
 Slowly
Don't try to fight it now
 You lose
 I am the sun
I am the earth
 I am
Take the gold
I give you
 In your foolishness
 Cry for more
My warnings go unheeded
 Suffocate in my gold!
Forget my beauty!
I can easily go on forgetting yours
 Dead fools
Are you still fools?
What have you
 Been left to see?
 I have no one
Nothing
 I hate you
 But I yearn for your foolish happiness
 Every last one
That kept my skies blue
 I suffocate in my own gold that kept my melodies ringing
And feel myself crumble
 Crumble

The Codex denies me sleep.

"while having really no symptoms that could be called at all serious,"

Well, I'm glad someone gets it. One of my pet peeves is people who say, "They can do X, but they can't cure the common cold." Well, I'm SOOOO sorry if scientists are spending so much time working on AIDS and cancer that they don't devote as much effort to the common cold.

Thus endeth the rant.

(Hope your cold doesn't last too long, Dave.)

I am posting this message to ask you all, players of chess, a question. As an opening for a game of chess, given that you are white, are you allowed to open with both B2 and G2 at the same time. Pls reply to my email address AbyanOwen@hotmail.com.

Pls help me. Thank you.

SLIGE! When will the next update be available? You havn't touched www.doomworld.com/slige in over a year! Please get to it ASAP

-Fellow SLIGE user

Edited by author 12-13-2002 11:46 AM
"Archaeology is the search for fact. Not truth. If it's truth you're interested in, Doctor Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall." -- Indiana Jones

As I grow older, I find that I learn more and more facts, and become certain of fewer and fewer truths.

Are you being here when no writing? Iric Chacon not here. There is odor.

Edited by author 02-02-2003 05:46 AM
the flowers of fall totter gently on their stems
zephyrs caress petals soon to feed the storm

fr: zophos - the darkness / of the west

Found you weblog via the bluepages/persona on w3. It's nice to see that someone actually links his ... weblog on there :) Come see mine ! >> http://www.de-leau.com

Nice pages !!

Why not? You are not here. Lizzy McGuire not here. Nothing are here.

When liquid splashes me, none seeps through. When I am moved alot, liquid I spew. When I am hit, color I change. And color, I come in quite a range. What I cover is very complex, and I am very easy to flex. What am I?


whats is the damn answer!!??

Hee hee! I found this in the referer log once and went looking around for it in Google. The one place where I found it answered, the answer was "skin", which seems plausible, but not completely convincing.

Where is this riddle being asked so much, anyway?

Is anybody in this forum?

I would really like to chat with you sometime. I was looking for magic eye images in google image search when i found your site. I am only 13 and dont really understand alot about all that complicated stuff, but when i came to your webpage i found it so interesting that i stopped looking at magic eye pictures altogether and stayed on your site. I eventually found myself here, typing this message and hoping that you would reply someday. I hope you do reply, and i hope we get to chat to each other sometime, because as i went through your site i dont know what it was (please dont take offence) but something drew me to you. My hotmail address is Kylejamesdonkin@hotmail.com

Thanks for the note, and glad you liked the site! When I was your age, I was also 13. *8) This isn't really an active forum that people are "on", it's just a talking place (down the stairs at the end of the narrow hall, down into the cool cellar, along the marble walk beside the stream, over to where the water drips somewhere behind a narrow opening in the pale rock of the walls, and sometimes people say something into the silence). Maybe I'll send you email or something.

Edited by author 07-11-2003 03:23 AM
Hi there, thanks for the link and glad you like our enormous site. Yours is great. More web-log-like and you're apparently sane, but nice to know there are like minds on other continents. _ Goda.

does anyone knew how to hack into peoples webcams without them knewing on yahoo please send me a message if u do ....

But that would be naughty!

Edited by author 09-04-2003 02:22 PM
Greetings!

It is beneficial to browse your site. Especially, your sense in art(paintings) and in theology is so impressive to me. great! wonderful!

PS. Do you remember me? I am the one who sent to you e-mail few days ago with a question whether you have aclose connection with INFOWEB in Korea and Terrace webmail.
I am still waiting for your honest answere of my personal and important question to you. God bless you!

"What must it be like to be a news anchor these days, and have to say 'Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger' with a straight face?"

Probably no more odd than it was for news anchors to say "President-Elect Ronald Reagan" with a straight face. It never seemed odd to me, since I'm not old enough to remember Ronald Reagan as an actor--to me, he was always a politician. But considering how odd "Governer-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger" sounds causes me to reflect on how odd "President Ronald Reagan" must have sounded to those people who did remember him as an actor.

On the "workman's wages" line, maybe that voice in your head is being too harsh. Maybe it's not him trying to seem noble; maybe it's just that he's aware that it'll be hard enough to get a job asking for only workman's wages, and he knows it would be utterly impossible to find anything if he were asking for higher-than-workman's wages.

On the St. Petersburg Paradox, and related topics, I would submit to you that even an infinite amount of money has a finite utility.

On the page you cited (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-stpetersburg/) I find Martin's objections to "An Upper Bound on Utility" somewhat naive.

Specifically, he presumes that if there is an upper bound on utility, then that upper bound must be reached at some finite number of dollars, and any additional dollars beyond that amount give no additional utility.

"Perhaps you find it reasonable to think that, once one had (say) $16,000,000 in the bank, you'd be able to buy anything you could possibly want; but this is not to say that that sum of money provides the maximum permissible utility. We can readily imagine someone with that amount of money - or any amount of money - still short of utility, due to lack of certain goods that money can't buy. What the idea of an upper limit on utility means is that there is some amount of utility which is so high that no additional utility is possible - that nothing additional adds any value at all."

But there is another possibility for a bounded utility which Martin does not address. The upper bound on utility might not be reached at any finite number of dollars; utility might asymptotically approach its upper bound as one's wealth increases. In this model, any additional money--no matter how little additional money, and no matter how much money one already has--provides some increase in utility, and thus addresses Martin's stated objections against a bounded utility. Yet, utility still has a finite upper limit, which allows one to rationally set a finite maximum price one is willing to pay to play the St. Petersburg game.

Edited by author 02-20-2004 02:48 PM
On the publicknowledge.org petition against H.R. 3261: "Public Knowledge" indeed. Sheesh. If they were really about public knowledge, you'd think they'd actually include the text of H.R. 3261. But no, it's just "Bad law! We must oppose it! Write your congressperson, because we tell you to! The law is bad! Just believe it is, because we said so!"

Go to Thomas, type in "H.R. 3261" in the Bill Number box, and read the text for yourself.

I frankly don't see that it's anything like Public Knowledge or Lessig would have us believe. You can't copy entire databases, or major portions of databases, without the permission of whoever created the database. It's not going to prevent anyone from taking a single item or two out of a database. In fact, it specifically exempts "for the primary purpose of news reporting, including news and sports gathering, dissemination, and comment..."

My one qualm is that "quantitatively substantial part" is left undefined, and might be open for abuse. Other than that, it looks like a reasonable law to me.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for Lessig, and I agree with him probably 90+% of the time. But I think he's wrong here.

     A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD JOKE
  The Guru had collected the Inner Circle of his disciples for an urgent revelation. When he had seated himself in his Great Chair and the Disciples had placed themselves in due order at his feet (the Youngest Disciple having duly locked the door) he spoke.
  "My sons, I have obtained a revelation which, I fear, the world is not ready to receive.
  "I was snatched up in the spirit to behold the very face of God.
  "My sons, She is Black."
  All the Disciples fainted dead away at the new, except for the Youngest Disciple, who said:
  "Whew! I always thought He was Jewish!"

Perhaps the woman was simply aware that Manhattan's streets and avenues are not orthogonal to the cardinal directions, and that "uptown" is actually closer to north by northeast than it is to north. (cf. http://tinyurl.com/37bbt).

Knowing of your interest in the strange response of some humans to some words, I thought I'd draw your attention to this AskMe thread.

Recommended kids' book: Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. I recently read this (and by "read," I mean here "listened to the audiobook") and enjoyed it very much. Very creepy, and very good. In addition to it being a good book on its own, there's two other benefits you may be interested in: it qualifies for your "Vasty Houses" list (at relevance level 2, or possibly 3), and it ends up with a very positive view of Coraline's ordinary, rather humdrum real parents.

Small web! I've contributed quite a bit of content to the TV Tropes Wiki you cited. Including the original B5 entry. (Of course, it being a Wiki, I can't take credit for the entire entry as it stands now.)

Who are chuck? Who are harry? Who are not here. Who are not of the smelling.

I are Chuck. I are not yrrah. I are not there. I are not of the boatswains?

Inspired by "sexygrrl404," an idea for one of those customized 403 pages. (I originally thought of this for a 404 page but realized it worked better for a 403 error.)

A 403 error page which plays a snippet of En Vogue's "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)."

Yeah, in general I think the artistic potential of the HTTP 403 status code has been underexplored.

Which is of newing year. Which is of exploring. Which is not here.

My understanding is that a trademark is for, well, a "mark," most often some kind of identifying logo, while a design patent typically covers an entire object. I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well, and yeah, it does seem like a rather arbitrary distinction.

Edited by author 03-02-2005 06:32 PM
"This is a directory of 2160 online papers on consciousness and related topics."

Curse you. Philosophy of consciousness is one of my recent interests. I've finished Dennett's Consciousness Explained and am about halfway through Searle's Mind. Now I need to take a year off of work so I can read through all these online papers.

"There has a sequence of photos within it in which a female otter is tied to a bed and an otter in a leather mask breaks open oysters on her bare stomach."

The Story of Otter?

Let us pause for a moment and remember Plurp, who has been constantly attacked by eagles for a year now.

I must concur in part and dissent in part with your earlier reader. Tea is tannic, but not bitter, when made properly. However, tea is often over-brewed, and when over-brewed, tea is both tannic and bitter.

As a point of comparison, red wine is tannic (some types more so than others; Cabernet Sauvignon tends to be especially tannic) but never bitter (unless something's gone horribly wrong with the wine).

Edited by author 07-08-2005 12:43 PM
"Hard to get into writing humorous or ironic or intellectual or trivial, or even deep and insightful, log entries in the shadow of people being blown up in London."

At least you're in good company: "[T]here is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." -- Kurt Vonnegut, in Slaughterhouse Five

"The thing I don't know is: if Kaylynn had failed and Ben had died, would I have just exited without saving and maybe tried again someday, or would I have saved, and played her from here on with the consequences of that tragedy?"

This reminds me of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Real Life." The holographic Doctor decides he wants to better understand the Human Experience (a common desire among androids, holograms, ex-Borg, etc., in the Star Trek Universe) and creates a family on the holodeck. A perfect, cheery family practically right out of a 1950s sitcom. B'Elanna objects that he's not really learning much out of this, and offers to tweak the program to make it more realistic...

Voyager attracts a good amount of criticism from Star Trek fans, much of it deserved, but this episode is worth watching.

David
Gretchen Lieberum has a new album Siren Songs. Check it out at www.gretchenmusic.com or at cdbaby.com/lieberum

What is up chuck? What is the holographic doctor? What are the sims2? It is very easy the telling of the good children.

I think the defense of pornography on this website is sick. How can any human being watch another human being used and discarded like that. Like it or not there is overwhelming supporting evidence that pornography DOES lead to sex crimes. Well, the denmark study....!! The denark study is completely bogus. Right about the time that study was released a bunch of sex crimes were decriminalized. Including voyeirism (peeping times), some types of incest and sexual harassement. Also, the age of consent (the minimum age at which a person can legally have sex with an adult of any age) in Denmark is 15. If some old man here in America took advantage of a 15 year old girl he would be thrown in jail and charged with rape!While there are some men that don't act out based on what they see, almost everyone who does act out has used pornographic materials and acted out actual scenes. Pornography is sexual abuse because it is NONCONSENSUAL. Well, what do you mean. According to the feminist definition for %100 consensual sex...

Consensual sex: sex engaged in that is not contingent upon any system of reward or punishment.

Those man-hating feminists ! That's ridiculous you say!. Is it? This analysis is used in businesses, colleges, ect.

For example if a business man offers his employee a promotion if she has sex with him, even if she willingly complies, it is considered a form of sexual exploitation. And most Americans would agree. Because she was doing it to gain a promotion.

 Wether you enjoy watching porn or not has nothing to do with it. There are a lot of things I've very much enjoyed in my life, "snorting cocaine, eating hamburgers with 40 grams of fat" that aren't good for me. Porn may be enjoyable but it's not good for society.

 It has been statistically proven that almost all girls involved in the sex industry were sexually abused as children. Contrasting to the one third of the actual female population. These women have come to see themselves as sexual objects and believe this is the only thing that they have to offer. Pornography, for these women, is a second victimization.

Sex workers have a dramatically increased rate of of sexual diseases. They usually don't use condoms (pornographers say people don't like seeing them) and even when they do, condoms don't protect against certain STDS such as PPV, and herpes. In fact herpes in the pornography industry are so common that they are called "fuck sores".

 Many porn actors are recruited when they are extremely young. Isn't it ridiculous that we don't allow adults to drink until they're 21, but allow some barely legal teenager (who may even still be in high school) be manupulated into engaging in a industry that may have life-long serious consequences both mentally and physically.

PORNOGRAPHY IS IS IS PROSTITUION! According to Webster's dictionary, New Third Edition. Prostitute= A person who engaged in sexual acts for money. Even the word pornography, which is a greek word, means porne=prostitute graphy=picture of. Picture of a prostitute! And isn't that what they really are? Paper prostitutes. How sad we actually condone this!?

Porn women aren't real. There plastic, digitally altered, and sometimes starving. They look like some kind of genetic mutation. No woman, actually even the women who are being videotaped in real life, can replicate that. This can and does create sexual satisfaction problems with committed couples. According to statistics the couples with the highest sexual satification rates are Christian fundamentalists! While I don't believe one must become a fundy to be against porn, I find it very interesting that this particular group has the best sex.

The sex in porn isn't real either. It's made out to be some kind of olympic event. This also constributes to real sex disatisfaction. Some teenager boy thinks all the girls in high school are walking around with wet panties, concealing their hidding desire to rip his clothes off and have their way with him. Boy is he going to be disappointed when his girlfriend/wife actually wants to have converation that last for 2 hours before he'll even let him touch her and an hour of foreplay.

Pornography is extremely addictive. Merely viewing it releases the same chemicals in the brain as cocaine, but in even larger amounts.





I'm not against sex. I understand that there are many commmitted couples that videotape themselves making love. I don't believe this is the same thing as pornography because there is no money, manipulation involved. This is done for pleasure, not power. so I believe it falls into another category.

I don't believe it should necessarily be illegal to be in possession of porn. I believe the people that should be arrested are the producers and sellers of it. This avoids unneccesarily politics and get to the root of the problem.

What are cents? What are pornography? What are concealing their hidding desire? Something is smelly in denark!

Edited by author 11-08-2005 10:00 AM
"Discovered on flickr: you can design your own valid U. S. Postage! Unless this is an unusually elaborate hoax."

Not a hoax, but not new either--stamps.com has been doing it since May, having also completed a 7.5 week test run in 2004. Apparently even Amazon is doing it now--at least according to an insert in my last shipment from Amazon. But I don't have the insert with me at the moment, and I can't find info on it from Amazon's front page.

Edit: turns out the ad I got with my Amazon shipment was for stamps.com.

www.firouzeh.co.uk

Edited by author 02-12-2006 05:35 PM
It was well past noon when she turned over in the warm pool of sunlight, turned over and stretched the full length of the bed, and it seemed to him - and he smiled at the realization - that she looked just like a cat, deliciously sleeping the whole day away, only to awaken at night to hunt.

Edited by author 02-22-2006 09:15 PM
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Mia wept.

You should fear the grimey masses who splatter words like giblets into your otherwise well sponged web log.

Well, it took a while, bidding on the best adult movies, but I took your advice and hope now to find a happy ending in the mail. Thanks, Dave.

"A hockey player near a garbage can lazily seeks a nation inside a squid."

No, no, not even close to a pangram. The spammer is missing f, j, m, v, w, and x. I propose the following instead:

"A quoits player near a garbage can lazily views a jackhammer inside a fox."

It's no The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, but it's not bad given the starting material, I think.

What is garbage? What is grimey masses? What is inside fox? It is of unclean smelling.

Underestimating the seriousness of being buried alive? Hmm, I think there's another version of Aida--by some Italian guy--you might like.

While perhaps not exactly horrific or disquieting, the final duet--"O terra, addio; addio, valle di pianti" ("O earth, farewell; farewell, vale of tears," but it sounds much better in Italian, don't you think?) is suitably tragic.

Edited by author 04-27-2006 12:05 PM
It's time for another round of Pangrammatize the spammer! This time I'll use spamtext I received myself rather than one of yours. I was rather fond of this sentence:

"The woman had cut off his foot with an axe and his thumb with an electric knife, and here she was with a pile of caviar big enough to choke a warthog."

But it's missing j, q, y, and z. Therefore, I propose:

"The woman had cut off his foot with an axe and his thumb with a quirky jigsaw, and here she was with a pile of caviar big enough to choke a zebra."

It has been two years now that Plurp has been in the Zone of Unpredictable Connectivity. Tell Steve his readers miss him.

Perhaps he'd like to hear it also from your sweet pen nib.

*sigh*

You might look here.

Or, better yet, here.

What is of not talking place? What is two years? What is here?

why does a name matter? why is it always the first question when you meet somebody? why is it the first step to getting to know someone? isn't the first step learning the outermost psychology - personality? oops. i had something to say to david chess. oh well. my thoughts on names are just as boring.

Nice tutorial for the transparent images wit Photoshop. Helped me alot, just wanted to say thanks.

Thanks

"nothing very bad would happen?" What about having your liver eaten by eagles?

I agree with "whydoesmynamematter?"Who cares what names are.Like most people lie about there name because they dont like it.And if they dont ask your name frist they just ask you out.And some times you dont even know them!!

when does a name matter?names are names,and when you tell them your name they just call you bud or pal or dude!

Names suck!!

who ever says that they suck they suck so ha ha ha lol do u know what cool means it means constapanted over watied out of style loser so ya u suck!!!!

this such a kewl talk place so if eny body wants to talk to me i will be on tomorow or next day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





so ya say kewl not cool or your dumb

hi how are u guys well its march 25 2007 and the time is 2:23 so ya well bye my cousin is here bye

"Findland?"

I'm a snoop.

For full disclosure, shouldn't you mention that you were once a player in the same nomic as S. Andrew Swann? :)

What is of davidchess? It is of somewhere.

So explain to me (and perhaps your other readers) the logic behind the Second Life weblogging boycott? I mean, I understand why the bloggers object to Linden's new policies, but I don't see how the weblog boycott is supposed to accomplish that. To me, it looks like their desired sequence of events is:

1. Stop blogging about Second Life
2. ???
3. Linden reverses policies!

As long as I'm on the topic of meaningless boycotts, I saw a few weeks ago where Hilary Clinton had called on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. How's that for a mixed message? If the Chinese are doing something morally abhorrent, we'll avoid the opening ceremonies--but not the rest of the games? I know, it'll be just like in 1980 when Jimmy Carter boycotted the opening ceremonies of the Moscow Olympics! Oh, wait...

(e) A Suffusion of Yellow

In case you hadn't noticed, "Lovers embracing by a fountain" has been replaced by "500 Internal server error." I much preferred the former.

Hm, yeah, look at that! All the CGI scripts on the site seem broken, in fact; I will write to the Esteemed Web Hosting Peoples. Tx for noticing!

Edited by author 10-04-2008 07:57 PM
 Hello! I have been a long time reader of your log (since the good ol' sims 2 days) and what kept me reading after the depature of The Sims was your very unique take on world news and the fact that you are actually quite funny.
However I must post a protest about the comment you made on 30th of September regarding the "bailout" of Wall Street:

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha bite me!

Run your own fucking country, assholes.

If your economy depends upon the US government stealing a trillion dollars from its citizens, then as the lolcats say, U R DOIN IT WRONG.

[rude sounds]" <--that comment in paticular

I am from Wales, in Europe, and we don't actually run our own country (Gordon Brown does it for us) but I digress.

The points that this rambling message is trying make are:

1. Many people such as yourself are complaining that the goverment will need money from the US taxpayer to help Wall Street. Isn't Wall Street actually run and funded by American taxpayers? Admittedly, not every American is a shareholder, but I'm sure a fair number are.

2. While I do agree with your point that Wall Street would recover from the recession eventually, many small banks which are closing now will have no way of recovering. Our towns local bank has been shut down because the economy simply isn't stable enough to justify owning the bank. If America had "bailed out" Wall Street, many banks would have been saved from closure.

3. "Run your own fucking country, assholes."- Globalisation (sp?) means that no country can truly have its own economy any more. If a similar crash had happened in Britain months ago, then America would have felt the reprucussions, albeit on a smaller scale. And at the end of the day, America is HUUUGE (pop. 305 mil.) especially compared to Wales (pop. 3 mil.) so what chance do we stand really?

Sorry for cluttering up your message board with my overly long post. Apologies also for my spelling and grammer (English isn't my first language). An please let me assure you that this is in no way a personal attack on yourself. I just like debating :D

Thanks much for the message, Emily! As I said in the entry (and I meant it!), I was rather horrified to find myself thinking that way; I posted it not so much because I think it's a correct reaction as to document and wonder about the fact that it was the reaction that I had.

On the specific point:

1) Not at all! Wall Street is a bunch of private firms, not run or funded by American taxpayers anymore than it's run or funded by Venezuelan or Welsh taxpayers.

2) It's true that not bailing out the current failing institutions would likely have led to quite a bit of pain, banks closing, etc. However, now that Congress HAS bailed them out, they will take even MORE risks (since, after all, if anything goes wrong someone will step in to save them), and the NEXT meltdown will lead to even more pain. Sacrificing long-term health for the short-term illusion of health: bad idea!

3) I know, isn't it awful? :) I think it would be ideal if countries could freely trade with one another, but ALSO arrange things so that if one country has a problem like this, other countries don't find themselves so entangled. Probably impossible, but hey...

hullo. Teucer has revived your curvature of the earth nomic:

http://einos-nomic.blogspot.com/

"Tale lara croft tomb, cradle nagiaa bronx, pack beyond. Saints, few recognized catholic church! Lille addition, passengers vehicles freight. Land km, sq mi region. Demand april may executive addict dies marathon, game sirius!"

Oh, so close to a pangram. Missing only j. I suggest:

"Tale lara croft tomb, cradle nagiaa bronx, pack beyond. Saints, few recognized catholic church! Lille addition, passengers vehicles freight. Land km, sq mi region. Demand april may executive addict dies jogging, game sirius!"

"The hydrogen atom..." is missing only Q.
"A wedge..." is missing J, Q, and Z.
"Not that there..." is missing J, X, and Z.

If a spammer ever manages to construct a proper pangram, the results could be dire.

I don't know if this helps but for C=S, the number of cards on top of other cards tends to C/e as C goes to infinity.

Oh, and doing the same calculation in Excel for C=24, S=24 (taking the values for T(24,F) from rows 277-300 of the "flattened" table) gives A_av = ~8.641905

What is of still here? What is of Q? What is of Stirling? Is it closed?

Log:Daivdchess:do any body now about sim 2 or 3 damn