The BWAIN

Fun with a strong Brownian motion producer

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:28:19 +1000

Theremug from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

Looks like a penguin...

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:26:25 +1000

Oh, yes. You've just made this nerd very happy.

The counterpoint to the mindless eating machine

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:34:55 +1000

This is why I'm not a marine biologist.

Hi, I'm a Mac. And I'm an abductee.

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:23:54 +1000

I only know John Hodgman from those advertisements and the occasional clip from The Daily Show. I'm sure he wouldn't like the term "comedian", but he's a great old-style humorist. This is his routine from TED 2008: For more nonsequiturs, here's his cameo from the show with zefrank.

Machinma on Absinthe

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:15:52 +1000

I'm not a fan of Van Gogh, and I'm not sure why he has the prominence that he does. I also don't get Second Life. Despite these two handicaps, this is the most beautiful piece of Machinma I've ever seen. (h/t Rob Knop) I submit this as further evidence that "photorealism" is a meaningless term.

Strategy Observer

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:35:26 +1000

Christer, at Real Time Collision Detection, wrote two posts repeating many criticisms of Design Patterns which get trotted out on such occasions. I thought this topic had been laid to rest a long time ago, but apparently not. So here's how I see it.

When subcultures become passe

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:09:25 +1000

I saw this at the local shopping centre yesterday and couldn't resist. Also here.

When poets attack

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:41:42 +1000

This is one of the cleverest things I've seen in a while. The back story is that the assistant head of English at Park Hall needed the red hand truck (that's a "porter's trolley", for those who don't get the American dialect), and asked for its return:

We're looking for an errant red hand truck. Anybody borrowed it or seen it? Thanks. --Mike

The word "errant" sparked a flood of responses spoofing famous poems. I can't resist, and I apologise in advance to the memory of Ogden Nash.

Lost hand truck
Is bad luck
But mimic
Is comic.

There once was a man from...

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:41:16 +1000

Moving house saps time and energy for blogging, not that I'm much of a high-energy blogger, but still. Figure I should say something. Chuck Jones once related this story:

A young man was once sent fresh from Columbia University with a mutual friend's introduction to Robert Frost. Frost scanned the young man's writings, then looking quizzically up through his craggy white brows he asked, "What do you do, son?" The young man drew himself up proudly; he was, after all, one with the great Frost. "I am a poet," he said. Frost gently answered, "The term 'poet' is a gift word, son; you cannot give it to yourself."

Those days are long gone. But even if they weren't, I've officially been called a poet by another poet. So I guess I'm a poet. Even more than that, I've now actually been paid for a poem. But for the full story, you'll have to wait.

Beware, already!

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:13:56 +1000

The day after Pi Day is the Ides of March. In honour of the day, some classic Wayne and Shuster. As first-generation television comedians go, these guys are a couple of my favourites. Their TV show was a fairly typical "acted out radio play" format, but what made Wayne and Shuster different was that their comedy was extremely literate. This episode is an extended version of a sketch that they performed on their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it's probably still their most famous. Some trivia: Frank Shuster was the cousin of Joe Shuster (the co-creater of Superman) and father-in-law of Lorne Michaels. Actual show is after the jump.

Happy Pi Day!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:26:52 +1000

For those who put the month before the day (why?), today is 3/14: Pi day. So happy Pi day! Have some pi: let p d = take d(fix(\i y h->let(z,x)=fix(\f xs->case xs of{((n,d,c):y)->let{(z,k)=f y;(q,r)=(c*10+k)`divMod`d}in((n,d,r):z,n*q);_->([],0)})y in case x of{9->i z(h++[9]) 10->i z(map(\x->(x+1)`mod`10)h++[0]);_->h++i z[x]})((1,10,2):[(i,2*i+1,2) |i<-[1..(10*d)`div`3]])[])in p 100 Feel free to change the "100" at the end to however much precision you need.

Whose type system is it anyway?

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:03:46 +1000

I left a comment as part of a review of the Real World Haskell book, but I thought it deserved a wider airing. In what follows "Algol's type system" refers to the type systems of Algol-esque languages, such as C and Java. Essentially, if it's a pre-Hindley-Milner static type system, it's probably Algol. Unless it's really ancient, like Fortran. (Fortran has the notion of a type, but it defaults to floating-point numbers. It has been said that in Fortran, God is REAL unless explicitly declared INTEGER.) Read on after the jump.

Zeitgeist

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:35:19 +1000

This op-ed from The Age is a very interesting read. It mentions two themes from the modern world: a decline in organised religion, and a view that death is unnatural. The mix results in a rise in the supernatural in our fiction, particularly with that part that deals with death.

Season's Greetings

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:29:34 +1000

Has anyone ever said "Season's Greetings" to you? I know it's on cards everywhere, on multiple continents. But has anyone actually said it to you? In my case, it's happened once. Probably about 25 years ago. But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

Phosphorescent phelines

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:37:28 +1000

Scientists create glow-in-the-dark cats. I find this just a little bit creepy. See after the jump as to why.