Vicariously Prejudiced in a Perfunctory Manner

So I was reading this interesting paper on Self-Reproducing Programs in Common Lisp, and I've just come to the bibliography at the end.  Lo and behold, there is some kind of story written there about a king, a toaster and several advisers who are supposed to create a microcontroller for it (the toaster).  Unfortunately it cuts off about halfway through, and now I'm curious as to what the moral is at the end.

Interweb, commence your sleuthing!

Well, it's been a month since I last posted.  That sure was unexpected!  Time to get a collection of links in no particular order off my chest:

Make Google dance for you (no, srlsly)
13000 people cannot be wrong
The power of Flickr and Google Earth come together in one epic evolution (go go Photosynth, I choose you!)
How to ransom a wallet over the internet
Every Topic In The Universe Except Chickens (Qwantz readers keep going)
Hello computer, how are you doing today? Oh good, a major scale - that means you're in top form! (non-nerds move on)
Guitar hero - on your chest
Everything in the universe about Zoggs

NOW, on with reality:

Today, I was thinking about programming and permutations.  We haven't covered permutations in Geometry, yet, but I was idly toying with flimsy's Ziggurat idea.  Instead of doing Geometry Proof review, I worked out a pseudo code algorithm to generate all the possible combinations of 1-15 letter words composed of a-z.  So, you shove all these words (I'm too scared to work out what the total number would be) into a database, then you use them to create all possible permutations of, say, 20 word sentences (this is a pretty ridiculous number, I know).  Finally, with this gargantuan database in hand, you create a hotornot/Google Image Labelling-like web app.  Interested visitors are shown a pair of sentences, and asked to vote on which is more powerful.  Far more often than not, they're both rubbish, but the user still has to choose one.  Anyways, these would be marked as unusable, and they would not be voted on again until the first "round" was finished.  You can read the rest of the Ziggurat link to find out how it all ends, but I'm pretty intrigrued by the idea of distributed permutations and then having people sort out the rubbish.  I'd love to try to get a distributed 50x50 pixel image permutation generator going, but it would require a lot of concentration, something which I don't feel inclined to give the idea.

The punchline to this commercial will hit you below the belt
Why can't I play Warcraft III on my tabletop :(
Google provides answers to questions that everyone asks

I snapped and I'm now an administrator on my local machine.  It started with trying to install Shareaza, and coming up against a brick wall because it wouldn't let me change any of the settings as a non-administrator.  That's right, you have to run a filesharing program as an administrator.  I can't think of a better way to screw up my computer.  Then I saw an interesting article about a program called Sudo for Windows, which looked like it would be very useful.  You can run programs, shortcuts, control panels and more with elevated privileges, and it also gave you the ability to open a temporary higher priveleged explorer shell, from which you could return to your normal shell at any time.  Unfortunately, after I installed it, I discovered that it seemed to require a freaking admin account in order to work properly.  Oh irony, you practical joker.  I finally gave up the ghost and I'm running as administrator again.  Maybe Vista will improve on the experience when it comes out.

In completely unrelated news, I'm pumped right now.  I spent about 4 hours in front of djDecks this afternoon, trying to record a mix.  In the process, I became thoroughly frustrated by the buggy keybinding system (seriously, can it even recall any custom bindings between sessions?  That bit me so often.) as well as the active deck behaviour, but I persevered.  I am the proud father of a 10 minute uninterrupted mix, complete with flanger and echo effects and four whole songs!

Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body (Paul Oakenfold Remix) vs Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl (mrlachatte's Acapella Edit)
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (mrlachatte's Dirty Gwen Funker Intro Edit)
Blur - Song 2

Download Russian Attack Episode 1 here (10 minutes, 11MB, requires Winamp/OGG codecs to play)
(Mirror)
(Mirror)

I would appreciate if I got other peoples' opinions on this.  I only just realized that the non-chorus bits of Hollaback Girl aren't really in key with Rock You Body and there are a couple sections where the beats are a bit spotty but nothing too drastic, and the bass levels on Smells Like are too high.  I'm happy with how the transition between Smells and Song 2 went, but I did it better in practice a few times.  So please, comment.  Massacre my bandwidth.  Help me improve!

So it was higher than 30°C, with a humidex pushing it past 40 today.  Calculus was in a portable and it was ghastly, then there was a fire drill later.  I came home and fell asleep at the dinner table, then woke up at 9:30pm feeling really gross because it was still really warm out.  I'm pretty sure this is my body complaining about the past year of lack of sleep!

Also I tried mixing some tunes for half an hour, but djDecks kept skipping every time I got the songs lined up.  That was depressing.

Fun with botnets
Let your computer make scrapbooks better than you ever could

This is the kind of musical performance that Flimsy would put on

Also, from the 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes:

LITERATURE: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.


And finally, the night's big update:

One turntable is hooked into my soundcard and DJDecks picks up the Serato Scratch vinyl on it just fine.  I played one of Martin Luther King's speeches (from an mp3) over top of a house beat (another mp3) and scratched the vocals using my turntable.  My mind was suitably blown.  DJDecks is going to be the first program I buy in (at least) 5 years.

Today I played with my turntables for the first time.  I haven't worked up the nerve to spend $90 on two phono pre-amps yet, so Mum gave me her Cold Cathedral vinyl (some 70s praise album) and Disneyland Tunes From Around The World (featuring the Mouseketeers!)  I'm getting better at using vinyl, all I need now is two albums I can actually mix together =\

Somebody explain to me why grade 9 girls are so raunchy?  I don't remember being so... single-minded when I was in grade 9 :<

Finally, I found this video by accident and it's a great remix of a great song with a great music video.

I am going to be a camp counsellor in July and August.  This is good news.  It is also a job.

I got 2.5 hours of sleep last night preparing for a Theory of Knowledge presentation.  Needless to say, our presentation was delayed.  Until Tuesday.  So angry.

A new Virgin Airlines commercial that hits the sweet spot.
The largest Windows Error message.

If Google was a real robot
The future of music composition (I want one)
Serenity, made from Lego
A touching film of a lawnmower that dared to dream big
Karate experts protecting cars.. what
When hackers got involved in world politics (and started a huge online war)
When everyday photos TURN EVIL - tragic_jones definitely should take a look at this
Fear of Girls - For the few people who have not seen this still, watch it now.  Alternately hilarious and cringe-inducing.
The Parlor - In the same vein as the last, an absolutely ingenious and hilarious film.
What. Is. This. (Flimsy link!)
Oh Australia, what won't you watch on TV?
Multi-touch screen.  Coolest way to make music since the MidiGun.
The first actually transforming robot?

I remember a couple people asking how to hide their entire journal.  Here you go.

Johari trendfollower.
Nohari trendfollower.

So a month ago, sometime after I last posted, I saw the 1966 Batman movie.  It is the best movie ever.  Period.  It's so deliciously campy that a fun time was had by all who watched it.

I'll give you a hint about the upcoming Firefox 2 alphas.  There's a new tabbed browsing that pissed me off for a few days.  Each tab now has an individual close button, which means if you reach up to where the old tab close button use to be, and you have a bunch of tabs open, suddenly you're closing a completely different tab than you meant.  I'm past that now, however, and I've gotten used to the per-tab buttons, so it's not insurmountable.

The biggest news, however?  I had my 15 minute French oral presentation, in which I talked about the Algerian fight for independence from France, answered questions and shot the breeze by talking about Australia for 5 minutes.  All in completely spontaneous French.  Fun.

Even bigger news is that I finally ordered my turntables tonight, for $450 (including mixer and headphones).  I've got speakers to attach them to, and I'm pumped.  I should be getting it all on Friday if all goes well.

Look, a new collection of links that I have been collecting over the past... 18 days? =O  I don't even remember most of these.

Office banter at Google
Snappy yet suave - personal blogging can actually be interesting!
Firefox - Doobie not included
The $225 Million Typo
I will live at home and never enter the workplace (ps support Max Barry's new initiative!)
Old news, but look! A Sam & Max comic!
Indie Tits (more indie than you!)
Scott Adams on embryos

In other news, Merry Christmas!  It's still Christmas for 20 more minutes, so shut up.  Since my last entry, I have seen Sin City, Pride and Prejudice and A Boy's Own Jedi Handbook.  The last was a stage production at Theatre and Company, and it absolutely rocks.  The characters are so wonderfully child-like, while the play itself is a great romp through memorized Star Wars lines.  Definitely something that tragic_jones, eljhika and phyxius149 should go see.  Sin City was dynamite to my mind, and I can't stop watching it.  I've seen it at least 4 times now, and I can't get enough of Clive Owen's voice.

Finally, happy birthday atrustheotaku!

Now, go forth and multiply.

Required links:

"It's like watching ogres dance"
Q-Unit - Like American Edit, but even more bizzarre (Queen and 50 Cent?  Who knew??)
A touching animation of romance and video game crossover (oh yeah, there's mind-blowing animation, too!)
Ever wondered about how antivirus companies worked in 1996? - Very cool story about one of the most complex viruses of 1996
Ever wondered if anybody is actually doing anything about spyware? - This man is kicking spyware ass and taking names, and he's consistently funny to boot
The Dilbert Blog - What do you know!  Scott Adams is actually an extremely funny and down to earth writer when he's not rehashing the same Dilbert jokes over and over.

Q-Unit is definitely worth a look if just for the image on the page.  I personally find it more of a novelty than serious mashup album, good enough to check out the songs once but not something I'd listen to over and over (unlike American Edit).  The Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat crossover animation is amazing to behold.  Somebody put far too much work into that.  Vital Security is one of the most consistently interesting feeds I have in Google Reader, it really shows you the seedy underbelly of the "legitimate" web.  It also shows you that you should pay more attention to those license agreements in programs off the web, because they might actually be legally binding!

Speaking of EULAs, this is my favourite program of the year.  Eulalyzer takes the guilt out of skipping those license agreements, because it scans them for key phrases ("third party software", "install", etc) that could signify something that you may not want to agree to.  It then shows a summary page, giving a few words around each page, and lets you zoom to the flagged phrases and work out exactly what the software's packing.  Now, almost everything is a false positive (it's not even a positive, it's simply a phrase that could be interesting), such as " 5.3 You shall indemnify PC Tools fully against all liabilities, costs and expenses which PC Tools may incur to a third party as a result of Your breach of the copyright and Trade Mark provisions of this agreement."  That came from Registry Mechanic, and it's simply the developers covering their backsides in case you screw up some other installed program by cleaning up your registry.  Skype, on the other hand, has a crapload of phrases flagged, but every one of them is legitimate and doesn't threaten me ("Skype also may suspend or terminate any license hereunder and disable any Skype Software You may already have accessed or installed without prior notice at any time with immediate effect and without recourse to the courts.")  Bolded bit is the flagged phrase, of course.  This is Skype saying that they have control over all their products and licenses and I can't do a thing about them.  It's not great, but I can live with it.

Eulalyzer saves me.  Period.  I feel so much safer knowing that this free program is scanning license agreements for me and showing me potentially harmful bits of the legalese.  And frankly, it's a lot easier to understand the small sections around potentially interesting phrases than it is to try to read the entire document at once.  Take it from me, get the program, make a shortcut to it on your desktop and take the extra 20 seconds to copy license agreements into it before clicking 'I agree.'  You never know what those crafty developers might be shovelling down your throat.