October 17, 2005

Art

Pixy Goes To The Movies

I went and saw Howl's Moving Castle today. That makes four movies I've seen (at the cinema) in the past month; more usually I'm likely to see one or two in a year.

It also makes four out of five of the current movies that I want to see -

Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-rabbit
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Serenity
Howl's Moving Castle
Corpse Bride
Only the last remains, because it doesn't open here until next week.

Howl's Moving Castle is a great (but flawed) movie by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso...). Rotten Tomatoes gives it 84%, which as far as I can see is the worst rating they have given to any Miyazaki film.

I'm planning to put up a review of all five movies at some point, so for now I'll just note that if you enjoy animated films or fantasy stories at all, this is a must see while it's on the big screen. But as I noted (and unlike most of Miyazaki's previous work) there are a couple of rough edges.

I can't say for certain whether these crept in during translation (possible for one of the problems), are present in the original novel by Diana Wynne Jones (most of Miyazaki's films are from stories of his own creation), or are Miyazaki's fault. I'll be seeking out the book tomorrow, so I'll be able to clear that one up at least.

As to what the rough edges are... Well, wait for the review.

Ah. Okay. From one of the reviews on Amazon:

Diana Wynne Jones is much more subtle with her lessons in the book than Miyazaki is in the movie so don't expect the "war is bad" and "love is good" lessons to be thrown in your face. In fact, there isn't even a war in the book! That was something that was added in the jump from page to screen.
Yes, that was the worst of the rough edges. Sure, war is bad and love is good, but before now Miyazaki has been able to communicate this without, well, throwing it in your face. Now I must buy the book.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:45 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

World

Message -> Mark -> As Junk

I've been trying to convince Thunderbird that the daily emails I received from the Washington Post are spam, but for some reason it's an uphill struggle. I don't know why Thunderbird refuses to block it, but this is why I want it to:

Sunni Turnout Is High In Vote on Iraqi Charter

Insurgents largely suspended attacks, granting Sunni Arab voters a chance to try to defeat the U.S.-backed charter and giving much of the country a rare day of peace that belied the deep fractures exposed by the vote.

Well sure, that's a piece of nice, straightforward, fact-driven reporting and not an abysmally biased opinion piece masquerading as news at all.

Fortunately we have blogs; in this instance The Belmont Club. At least Wretchard knows the difference between reporting and speculation.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:34 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 16, 2005

World

Intelligent Design In The Dock

This is funny:

MR. MUISE: We object on the basis of hearsay again for any testimony relating to this affidavit, this out of court statement issued by Mr. Kenyon.

THE COURT: Again you're going to have to do better than a basic hearsay objection, and it's also an affidavit that appears to have been part of the record papers in that case. Now, is it unreliable? Do you have any reason to doubt its voracity?

MR. MUISE: Well, Your Honor, again with regard to it's an affidavit given in a court case that's not addressing the issue of intelligent design. Again she's relying on these statements to arrive at an opinion that's not substantiated by, you know, by weaving this web of these assorted statements throughout the course of the testimony. We're going to continue to object to any of the statements that keep coming up, Your Honor, and I'll ask for a standing objection on that, but --

THE COURT: Well, I don't think a standing objection is going to work for you because you may have particular things you want to say about it. You have to do what you have to do. I'll overrule the objection.

...

Q. And Matt, could you go to the first highlighted portion of the document?

MR. MUISE: Your Honor, we object on the basis of hearsay.

THE COURT: Are you objecting to the document, reference to the document generally, or to individual parts of the document?

...

MR. MUISE: Objection to the reading of this portion of the text into the record on the basis of hearsay.

MR. ROTHSCHILD: I'm not offering it for the truth, Your Honor.

...

MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, one more thing. Mr. Muise is objecting because these are philosophical and theological statements, and I think most of what Dr. Forrest is going to testify about surely are, and it is the plaintiff's position that intelligent design is at its core a philosophical, theological, religious statement. So that, I mean, that's what she's here to testify about, so it's not going to be surprising if those kinds of statements are, you know, the core of Dr. Forrest's testimony today.

THE COURT: Well, if you said that to get Mr. Muise to stop making continued objections, you're probably going to fail. So let's move on.

...

MR. MUISE: Your Honor, we object on the basis of hearsay.

THE COURT: Overruled.

Muise is the counsel for the defendant, the Dover Area School District, which is trying to teach Intelligent Design in public schools. They don't seem to be having a good time of it in court.

One thing I've noticed about judges (in my limited experience) is that they really don't appreciate time-wasters.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:55 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

World

Cool

Nylon, Yummy Nylon

Here's something I haven't seen before: The story of how a single mutation allowed a bacteria to digest nylon:

My favorite example of a mutation producing new information involves a Japanese bacterium that suffered a frame shift mutation that just happened to allow it to metabolize nylon waste. The new enzymes are very inefficient (having only 2% of the efficiency of the regular enzymes), but do afford the bacteria a whole new ecological niche. They don't work at all on the bacterium's original food - carbohydrates.
Naturally, this ability to digest nylon is "irreduceably complex": If you remove any one of the genes involved, it no longer works. Unfortunately for the IDists, we know exactly how a single genetic mutation gave rise to this ability.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:15 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 15, 2005

Geek

Preconditioning

Weird. I was going to cleam up my blogroll, and I started clicking on some of the links to check them, and a number of them came up with error 412:

Precondition Failed
The precondition on the request for the URL / evaluated to false.
I suspect an overzealous referrer-spam filter, but if that's the case, it's awfully common. Try clicking on any of these links:
A Small Victory
American Digest
Cold Fury
Daily Pundit
Any ideas? Anyone?

Pause.

Oh. Duh. Ambien. I've been cut off from the net. [Sobs.] If I bring up my blog as ai.mu.nu it all works.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Anime

Wash Your Mouth Out!

In the series Pretty Cure (which is targeted at pre-teen girls, near as I can tell), the amorphous monster thingies that get summoned by the bad guys are known as zakenna. Or at least, that's the sound they make.

In the current episode of Bleach that I'm watching (about ep. 319 or so), the main character says zakenna at one point, and the subtitle comes up Screw you!

Blink blink. It's a very plausible translation in the context (a heated argument), but is that really what the monster is saying in every episode of PreCure?

Apparently so:

[zakennayo] (exp) (X) (vulg) fuck you!/don't fuck around!/don't be a screw off!
Heh.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:24 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 14, 2005

Cool

What To Unmake...

And how to unmake it.

So you've read the Evil Overlord List, and got yourself comfortably established? And now you're ready to destroy the world? Only you want to do the job properly?

Here's how.

(via Chizumatic)

Update: Here's a handy button for your website to keep track of the current status of planet Earth:

Of course, I really should hotlink it to make sure it stays up-to-date, but that's considered impolite.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:35 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Anime

Not Just For Cleaning The Bathroom

Bleach is one of the most popular anime series in fansub right now. As I type this, a double-episode has just been released (eps. 52 and 53) and there are 15,000 people downloading it.

Remember, this is subtitled. 15,000 simultaneous downloads is quite a lot.

I'm beginning to wonder why, though. I picked up a few episodes and started watching it, and it seemed like quite a good series. A bit of action, a bit of humour, a bit of supernatural horror (the show features shinigami, Japanese death spirits, and "hollows", which are ghosts that have lost their ties to the world and seek to fill themselves by devouring other souls).

And then around episode 12, it started slowing down. A fight that might previously have taken half an episode took two. Humour and character development fell by the wayside in place of more fights - which got slower still. And then one of the characters got abducted, and the other characters set off to rescue her, and the whole series just ground to a halt.

I'm watching it now - sort of. I have it playing in one window while I read Chizumatic in another. Some bad guy was mortally wounded three episodes back, and he's just about to die now. I hope.

Honestly. I've said before that Fushigi Yuugi would have been better if they'd cut four episodes from it, but this is ridiculous. You're lucky to get two minutes of actual plot per episode. Given a couple of hours, I could splice each pair of episodes into one (except for episode 33, which is a stand-alone sort of thing) and it would be twice as good. At least. You can just sit there and watch it and see tick... tick... tick... 30 seconds of reaction shots and dialog that add nothing to the story. Snip! Heroes running along the same tunnel they were in five episodes back. Snip!

Meh.

Who wrote this thing, Robert Jordan?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cool

Stupid Science Tricks

Do not look directly at Sun with remaining grape.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 12, 2005

World

146 Years Of Smacking Idiots

Charles Darwin published his great work, The Origin Of Species, in 1859, and still people are writing posts like this one:

Finally, a skeptic has come to terms with reality. Douglas Kern at Tech Central Station has just posted an article on why Intelligent Design will replace neo-Darwinism as the dominant worldview on biological origins.

Most people don't understand the ID debate, because atheist fundamentalist fruitbat critics are too busy trying to shout down any debate with vitriol - attacking the messenger instead of the message.

You've seen it in the blogosphere - the endless rants about how ID is just a 'front' for Creationism (as if Darwinism wasn't a convenient front for secular humanism) without any reasoned attempt to actually meet ID's scientific challenges head on.

The debate from the science side can get a bit strident at times, it is true, but that is largely because the side of nonsense has been putting forth the same arguments since (and indeed before) Darwin's day. One can understand the irritation of the practicing biologists and geologists that 80 years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, the Creationists can put the same arguments out yet again under a new name, and try to force their nonsense back into schools.

And I'll ignore for now the irony of

[A]theist fundamentalist fruitbat critics ... trying to shout down any debate with vitriol - attacking the messenger instead of the message.
As I wrote in comment to the above post:

A scientific theory must be predictive - you must be able to use it to make predictions (whether these are positive or negative). It must be explicative - it must explain some natural phenomenon. It must be falsifiable - there must be some experiment or observation (and one that is actually possible to perform) that can prove that it is incorrect.

Evolutionary Theory fulfils all of these requirements. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is right. (It is right, of course, but it is the never-ending avalanche of confirming evidence that tells us this.) What it means is that it is a valid scientific theory.

Intelligent Design doesn't even begin to fulfil any of these requirements. That means it is not science. It's as simple as that; it's not science. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong, just that it's a load of supernatural claptrap. It could in fact be correct, and it would still be a load of supernatural claptrap.

ID is not science, by the very definition of what science is. So teaching ID in the science classroom is fraud.

And it's nonsense. It says nothing, does nothing, makes no claims, except that "Evolution is wrong". Evolution can be shown to be wrong, but the IDists (and their predecessors the Creation Scientists and their predecessors the Creationists) can't do this because there is no evidence whatsoever that Evolution is wrong. And absolute mountains of evidence that Evolution is correct.

You might as well teach homeopathy in medical school, phlogiston in chemistry and the flat-earth theory in geography. In fact, all of these are more worthwhile than ID because they can - and have - been proven false.

ID can never be proven false, and that is why it is totally worthless. You can never know if it is true or false. The whole point of science is about exactly that, of winnowing the seeds of truth from the chaff of nonsense. With ID, you simply cannot do that:

By contrast, Darwinism cannot accept even the slightest possibility that it has failed to explain any significant dimension of evolution.
That's exactly the point. Evolutionary Theory must explain (or at the least, be compatible with) every significant dimension of evolution, or it is wrong. There's no point of having a theory if it doesn't explain its subject matter, and there's no point in having a theory if you can't know whether it is right or not.

Go ahead and teach ID as religion or philosophy, but it is not science, nor can it ever be.

(Cross-posted to The University of Woolloomooloo)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:16 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 10, 2005

World

Piglets Of The Day

piggies1.jpg

(Picture via Little Green Footballs)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Life

Pooh Poker

Rules

Cards are dealt one at a time, starting with the player to the dealer's left and continuing clockwise until each player has four cards. Each player can then choose to replace any number of cards (zero to four); the appropriate number of replacement cards are dealt to each player in turn, again starting from the dealer's left and proceeding clockwise. The winner of a given hand becomes the dealer for the next hand. In case of a tie, the dealer does not change.

The game is played with a deck of Disney Pooh Snap cards. Since the deck contains only 36 cards and there are no suits, there are some variations from regular poker.

Cards (in order of descending value)

Pooh
Pooh/Tigger
Pooh/Eeyore
Kanga/Roo
Tigger
Piglet
Wol
Rabbit
Eeyore

Hands (in order of decreasing value)

Four of a kind
Three of a kind
Straight
Two pair
Pair-and-a-half
Pair
Half pair

Notes: Four of a kind, three of a kind, two pair, and one pair are the same as the regular poker hands. Since there are no suits, there are no flushes, and with only four cards in the hand, there is no full house.

Half pairs occur when you get two cards sharing a common character, thus Pooh with Pooh/Tigger or Pooh/Eeyore, Tigger with Pooh/Tigger, or Eeyore with Pooh/Eeyore. You can only get one half pair; any combination containing two possible half pairs is a higher scoring hand - a pair, two pair, or a straight.

A straight is not a question of having cards in rank order (as in regular poker), but having a chain of common characters across all four cards. There are three such chains:

Tigger-Pooh/Tigger-Pooh-Pooh/Eeyore (highest)
Pooh/Tigger-Pooh-Pooh/Eeyore-Eeyore
Tigger-Pooh/Tigger-Pooh/Eeyore-Eeyore (lowest)

(This ranking is based on the ranking of the hands if straights were not a special scoring hand.)

Variants

Wols Wild: Wols are wild - they can represent any card. Ties are broken by the number of Wols; the fewer Wols, the better the hand.

Lowball: The lowest ranking hand wins. The lowest possible hand is a Piglet-high nothing; the highest hand is four Poohs.

Betting

Betting is optional, as the game is designed for frazzled parents and babysitters. Small candies like M&Ms, or other edibles such as peanuts are ideal. In case of a tie, the pot is held over until the next hand, or someone gets hungry.

Best for three or four players; with five players and a single deck it is possible to run out of cards. Ages 30 and up.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:16 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 07, 2005

World

Piglet Of The Day

boar-piglet.jpg

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:02 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 06, 2005

Life

Sunny Melbourm&*%ne

This is a - Ringwood - Limited Express - Service via the - City Loop. Help us to create a better service by validating your ticket.

Well, I wasn't planning on invalidating my ticket.

Yes folks, I'm in Tram Town, and my wireless internet access is workmbling just fi83849**(($(.

Speaking of which, what the fetid photon have they done to Spencer St Station?! I thought I would have to walk to Flinders St to actually catch a train.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 05, 2005

World

Piglet Of The Day Part Two


adopt your own virtual pet!

(via Owlish)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

World

Piglet Of The Day

This one courtesy of Meg's Musings.

freepiglet-large.jpg

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:06 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 04, 2005

World

Piglet Of The Day

piglet.jpg

(Image stolen from courtesy of Kosher Piglets)

Least Loved Bedtime Stories < Relapsed Catholic < Lost Budgie

Also: Mark Steyn

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:46 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Standards

I came in to work this morning to find that one of our payment processing servers had gone little-rubber-feet up over the weekend. A couple of minutes of poking around told me that either the power supply had failed or the motherboard was fried beyond repair. It took five minutes to pull a power supply out of a spare desktop machine and swap it in, and we had a working server again.

Because we use standard ATX power supplies and motherboards for all our systems, we can do that.

I'm off on a trip on Thursday, and I'll be on the train for about 11 hours. The battery life of my notebook is only three or four hours. Fortunately, I'm in the middle of setting up another notebook for one of our managers and I can borrow the battery from it while I'm away.

That only works because the two notebooks are identical models. There are hundreds of different notebook batteries around, exactly two of which will work in mine.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:01 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Life

Dee Dee Dee

I'm on holidays from the 6th to the 16th. Yay for me! It's the first time I've had more than one non-public-holiday off in two and a half years.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cool

Grrrr!


You Are A: Bear Cub!

bear cubBears are strong and independent creatures who roam in the forest in search of food. Bears are usually gentle, but anger one and be prepared for their full fury! You're tough, you won't back down from a fight -- classic attributes of a bear. Intelligent and resourceful, though lazy at times, you are a fascinating creature of the wild.

You were almost a: Monkey or a Kitten
You are least like a: Duckling or a LambWhat Cute Animal Are You?

(via Ultrablog)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 28, 2005

Life

Take The Train

I'm heading off to Tram Town next week to bother visit my family. Naturally, I'm taking the train.

Why?

Here's why:

  1. Go to train website.
  2. Check timetable.
  3. Buy ticket online.
  4. Receive ticket as PDF via email.
  5. Print ticket on printer.
  6. Catch train.
  7. Snooze and/or read and/or watch anime and/or listen to iPod and/or play games on Palm Pilot as countryside rolls by. (I haven't got the extended battery yet so I'm limited to about 3 hours of anime.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:46 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 25, 2005

Geek

Multiply And Conquer

This card sports two Nvidia 7800GT graphics chips and 512MB of memory. This motherboard has four 16x PCI-Express slots. And this delivers 1000W continuous and 1100W peak.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:25 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 23, 2005

Cool

Aha!

DEMOCRACY IS DEAD!!! BUSH!!! (PUKE!!!!!!!) THE TRUTH IS AT OUTSPOKENMOLLUSKSFORUNIONWAGES.ORG!!!!!!!!? POWER TO THE WICCANS!!! THE THIEF-IN-CHIEF'S WAR AGAINST CIVIL RIGHTS MUST END NOW!!!! UNLIKE YOU AND TUCKER CARLSON, I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH OIL!!!!!!!? WHAT CAN WE EXPECT NEXT!? WILL THE CAPITALISTS COME TO ABUSE ME FOR BEING A MINORITY!? WILL MY UNSPOILED FRIENDS NOW BE ENSNARED JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE BISEXUALS!!!!? AS I UNDERSTAND IT IT'S OPEN SEASON ON VEGETARIANS!!!! I REJECT VIOLENCE AND OCCUPATION! CHRISTIANITY, INDEED!!!!!!!! KING GEORGE ONLY WANTS BLUE STATES FOR THE OIL!!!! (IF ONLY THERE WERE OIL IN RED STATES!!) NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!!!!!!! QUITE LITERALLY, THE REPUGNANTANS STOLE THE SO-CALLED ELECTION BY GASSING THE HOMEOPATHIC VOTERS IN MY MIND, JUST LIKE PIXY MISA HELPED OUR SMIRKING CHIMP TO STEAL CIVIL UNIONS FROM THE ELDERLY INSURGENTS (WHILE THE OIL LOBBY HAPPILY SAT ON THE SIDELINES, HONESTLY)!!
Now we know! Now we know everything!




Get your own Autorantic Virtual Moonbat. They make great gifts!

(via Least Loved Bedtime Stories)

(Update: Okay, so it's a year old. It's still cute.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:44 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 22, 2005

Geek

Yay For Technology

I have wireless internet! On my notebook! 1Mb/s at 100km/h! Well, the trains don't actually run that fast, but then again I got the slower plan, so it all balances out...

Sort of.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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