Neo-neoism

I've noticed something - the prefix "neo-" (meaning "new") is often added to political/sociological views with a pejorative connotation ("neo-conservative" would be the canonical example of this phenomenon, but I'm sure you could think of others). Whatever happened to the Matrix, where Neo was wicked cool? I'm declaring myself a neo-neoist ("one dedicated to putting a positive connotation on the prefix 'neo-'"). I've done a Google search, and there's some guy with a blog called "neoneoism", but I don't think the name is otherwise taken. Due to this, I've declared myself Grand Oracle of neo-neoism, and am accepting applications for lackeys.

Ok folks, show's over - that's my random wackiness for tonight. Peace.

Opinion: yes. Knowledge: no. Ahh, the blogosphere!

So, as the title suggests, I know nothing about royal protocol, or naming horses. Still, reading this article that talked about the Queen being given a horse renamed George (after her grandfather), it occured to me that I would likely be slightly insulted if someone gave me an animal named after a member of my family. Just saying.

Apparently I'm blogging again ...

One more thing - a couple excerpts from a CBC news bulletin about a family who lost their house because their barbecue blew up:

The family had been cooking steaks on an outdoor barbecue and they were inside when it exploded.

Doug Hamer, the Riverview Fire Rescue chief, said the family members escaped, but didn't even have time to get their shoes on.

"The whole second floor is burned off it. There's fire damage on every floor of the house," Hamer said.

...

The Riverview firefighter said it was a good thing the family was inside when the explosion happened.

Later in the article:

"And any items like that shouldn't be left unattended. It's not a good habit to put your cookables on and walk away."

I see the general case there, but wouldn't someone be dead if they'd been standing beside that barbecue when it blew up? (Ok, Ok, the reports from the neighbours said there was a fog (I'd assume propane) that formed around the BBQ beforehand, but if that hadn't been noticed, or just mistaken for more smoke?)

Ramen-men from outer space

I just had an idea for a B-grade (C-grade ?) sci-fi movie - Hungry giant space aliens want to cook some ramen noodles, using Earth's oceans as their boiling pot. Now back to your regularly scheduled programing - Peace.

An Ode to Paper

The Gmail developers put up an interesting blog post today - talking about how they were trying to beat paper with their new Tasks widget for iPhone. They cite the following advantages for paper:

• Easy editing. Cross out with pen and write something new.
• Works offline. You can read paper even when your PC is not connected to the internet.
• Mobile. Fold paper and stick in pocket.
• Instant boot up. Just pull paper out of pocket -- don't have to wait for it to load.

I can add one more: its cheap - a fraction of a percentage of the cost of iPhone and data plan - I carry a pad of paper and a pen with me at all times, in addition to my (very basic) Palm PDA. Long Live Paper!

Geek Moments

Every so often, I have an "Oh my, I AM a geek ..." moment - two were this morning, when I was removing plates for Christmas breakfast (Merry Christmas to everyone by the way) from the bottom of the stack, instead of the top, and I have a mental conversation with myself somewhat as follows:

Me: "Ha, its a queue, not a stack (chuckles)" [for those of you in CS, if your data structures class didn't involve the spring-loaded plate dispenser example for a stack, you're missing out]
Me also: "Oh my, I am a geek ..."
"Hmm, I have a lot of these 'oh my, I am a geek' moments"
"I should blog about -"
"Oh my, I AM a geek ..."

Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone, and a Happy New Year - I'll end with this link ("If programming languages were religions") that I've already posted to Facebook, but should repeat here (if you get most of the jokes, you are a geek too - if not, there's still hope for you :-) )

Wicked Cool Canadian Invention

Apparently the trackball mouse was invented by the Royal Canadian Navy. Wicked Cool. I love my country (and trackball mice - I have a fairly nice Logitech I picked up on sale at the Bookstore).

A few good links:

Keeping up with my habit of blogging in bursts during downtime (yes, finals is downtime - if it weren't for the exams, it'd be the slackest time of year :-) ), A few links I've run into that are pretty good:

Stuff Christians Like: Applies leg drops of sarcasm (all in good Skittle-flavored fun) to some of the ridiculousness that happens around Christianity (potlucks and DVBS food and all that other fun stuff), with some seasoning of real stuff about how big and awesome God is, and what he's done in the author's life. [kudos to Christina for giving me the link to this one]

Global TV: Streams full episodes of a bunch of shows on Global (so I can still get House and The Office when I have no TV). Admittedly, this is pretty standard for TV network sites these days, the great part is, ... wait for it ... it works in Linux! Major props to whoever did their website

Well, I guess that was a couple, not a few ... oh well ... enjoy.

So my grandparents are on facebook ...

Yes, that's right, my grandparents have a joint account on Facebook. Its either become mainstream and permanent, or rung its death knell. Rather shocked ...

Completely off message

I saw this article, titled "Google Looks to Tech that Recognizes Text in Images" and immediately thought "circumvention of CAPTCHA systems" (the wonky security text). Of course, the press release talks about reading street signs from Google Maps Street View, etc. It must be a computer science thing - seeing a system, and immediately thinking how to break/corrupt it - finding the extreme cases (useful, of course, for making software more stable). Any other computer scientists agree/disagree? (yes, I've come to terms with the term "computer scientist" - it isn't so bad as I thought it was at first ...)

Christmas Break

Today's xkcd is super neat, and really captures the experience of going home for the holidays. (if you don't read xkcd, you should, its only the greatest webcomic in the 'verse (and no, it has nothing to do with Firefly (but if the author saw it, I expect he'd be a fan (I just love nested parentheses :-) )))) Just last night, I was at a friend's family's Christmas party, helping him get some stuff running on his new Kubuntu installation - we were in the middle of trying to get DVD playback running when I heard his parents cleaning up upstairs (it was about 11 at this point) and figured I'd better leave - you forget at university, when having friends over that late or later isn't terribly abnormal, that your parents' generation tends to leave at 9 or 10. Anyway, Merry Christmas all, and a Happy New Year.

I have something in common with Bill Gates!

Its a somewhat little known fact that Bill Gates full name is William Henry Gates III. I was curious as to exactly which of his ancestors were William Gates Sr. and Jr. A short trip to Wikipedia later, and now I know. His father, William Gates Sr., was born William Gates III. When he joined the Army to fight in WW II, he changed his name to William Gates Jr., to avoid elitism. Later, when his son became really famous, he again changed his name, to William Gates Sr. (neat, eh? - he was all three). More sanely, his father and grandfather were born William Gates Jr. and Sr., respectively. Since the third William Gates had dropped his 'III', Bill Gates (of Microsoft) got the 'III' suffix instead of 'IV', and is nicknamed "Trey" (for "three") within his family. But still, Bill Gates is (unofficially) a "IV", as am I, BruceIV. Confusing, but cool.

Crazy Idea of the Month

Well, the recent Daylight Savings Time change got me thinking about times. Specifically, why are they still tied to the sun? It is archaic. We have electric lights, we have globalized communications - why are our clocks still synchronized to the time that the sun rises or sets in our particular corner of the world? Why can't we just use a 24-hour time clock (because 12-hour clocks are redundant, confusing, and would likely completely disappear if TV switched to a 24-hour clock), universalized over the entire map. (UTC, known in the past as GMT or Zulu, would work). As far as the calendar goes, January is midsummer in Australia, yet midwinter here. Why is it that 6AM is morning in both locations? Just a crazy idea ... I'm sure there are (increasingly less valid) reasons for tying our clocks to the sun's rise and set ... but still - it would help with a few things (international communication and transport come to mind) (admittedly, I expect those whom it would help most - FedEx and such - are already using this sort of system). Signing off, time: 2225.

Tootsie Rolls and Forests

I went shopping today, had some fun with that - went to the brand new Dollarama in town (oooh - as big as the one in Fredericton ... ). I bought a Tootsie Roll, and then decided it is obviously the superior form of chocolate bar, as you can't just scarf it down (way too chewy for that), so you get to savor the flavour. Very good - not like I needed the sugar, but I want another one now ... I bought a power outlet splitter (because the dollar store is a great place for cables and cords, and there's never enough outlets for our computers in Computer Science classes) - now I can be a good citizen, and share a limited resource. Then I went and bought my supply of printer paper for the new year (at Wal-Mart, not the Dollarama) - 2 reams (that's 1000 sheets) - given previous year's evidence, it'll all go too, plus a sizable amount of looseleaf - I wonder how many acres of forest is forested to feed the paper needs of my university yearly ... its likely an atrocious number (not being a good citizen there, but, what can you do ... paper just works better for a lot of things). Now I'm sitting home listening to my little bro's new headphones - surprisingly good bass for earbuds - still, his iPod is only a few months old - the stock headphones shouldn't have worn out that quickly (they cost like $40 to buy them separately ... they should be higher quality for that price...) - my brother, being smart, spent half that for his new phones - which have an ear clip that's actually comfortable (I had a pair once with a clip made of stiffer plastic - they pinched my ears and were very uncomfortable), and the aforementioned good bass. Anyway, that's my evening, apologies for rambling, g'bye now.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept:

This was just too funny - I posted it verboten from CBC news. Enjoy

Thieves carried off 22 pigs in compact car - CBC News

RCMP have arrested a pair suspected of stealing 22 pigs from a barn near Sussex, N.B., in a getaway that police say was likely a very tight squeeze.

Thieves took the pigs earlier this month after smashing the locks on a barn in Knightville, rented by Moffett's Farms.

The two from Petitcodiac, aged 19 and 20, are suspected to have used one small car to haul the 22 pigs, weighing 23-27 kilograms each, from the farm to the house in Havelock where police tracked them.

RCMP picked up the trail after one of the men forgot his ID at the scene of a break-in.

Const. Jim Gass said the stench from the pigs was immediately apparent to investigators, who found a small car, filled with pig droppings, as well as sacks used to transport the pigs.

"This little car they transported them in once had like 22 pigs," Gass said. "Man, it wasn't a lot of room in the car. She would have been a noisy affair, I would imagine, and quite a wild ride. Something you see in the movies, I would guess."

Police couldn't recover all of the pigs, worth about $75 each. The suspects allegedly ate one the night of the theft, Gass said. Most of the others, police said, were sold to unknowing customers.

RCMP won't release names of the suspects because the men have yet to be charged.

Both suspects are to appear in court Sept. 24 on unrelated charges.

My Infinity is bigger than your infinity

Although, in hindsight, it really is intuitively obvious, it has been proven that infinity comes in different sizes. Mathematically, this is interesting, as it'll likely sprout a new branch of mathematics or something within the century. Or not, and it'll be cool anyway. In any case, I'll post a link, and the basic idea of it. Picture the set of natural numbers - it is infinitely large - now picture the reals, of which the naturals are a proper subset. The reals are also infinitely large, but a larger infinity, because the naturals are a proper subset. If you're not a mathie, the article does explain more clearly (and with the formal proof too, so its better both ways). Anyway, later.

Everything comes full circle

Apple has a new patent - hype says possibly for use with a new iPhone model. What interested me is that it looks a lot like a rotary phone. Retro, eh?

Good news for me

CBC has an article about a study that says firstborn children tend to be smarter. I find it encouraging ... though the article says its nothing genetic, so if my little brothers decide to call a mob hit on me, whoever's left of them will be the eldest, and thus get the benefits ... hmm, not so encouraging.

Racism is Illogical

Well, I've been working my summer away for my hometown's Recreation Department. So far, there's been a lot of painting. Part of the painting job has been painting over graffiti, which is rather annoying, because it should be unnecessary, and I just painted that wall two weeks ago. What made me wonder though, was the message on the graffiti. The one I painted over said "Stop Atlantica" (Atlantica being a cross-border trade conference) - I saw another through its paint patch job that said "Racism is illogical". There are similar graffiti messages in other spots. So, why would our vandal put "Stop Atlantica" - this is the message of a socialist activist. There is no one in town that can do a single thing to stop Atlantica. For the racism message, well, its a small town - there are maybe 2 or 3 dozen non-white people in the entire town - racism is basically a non-issue. So, our vandal has a social conscience (or at least, his messages do), yet the messages have no audience. Why put them there then? Its the wrong forum - its fruitless, futile. So why? I can only suppose that our vandal is looking to justify his vandalism. When town workers paint over his messages, he can internally condemn them for being racist pigs, or horrible capitalists, hurting the poor (or so the socialists will say). Instead, the town workers are merely anti-graffiti. Anti-racism messages are a good thing. Just not on the pool walls. ... Anyway, this has been random, but I didn't have much better to do at work then attempt to psycho-analyze the person who was giving me more unnecessary work.

Snowflakes

I just remembered something weird from my childhood. I used to like cutting snowflakes out of folded paper - and then you'd unfold the paper, and it would have these lovely repeating patterns. I always wanted to understand how my cuts would affect the pattern, to be able to predict the result before I unfolded it. And also, which seems to me slightly a weird mix, I was always disappointed that I couldn't figure out how to fold the paper or cut the pattern so that my "snowflakes" would be six-sided, because all snowflakes in nature are six-sided. It just was a slightly odd contrast - the art of cutting the paper, and then trying to fit it to rigid science - they seem like two different beasts. But then again, perhaps, as Darth Vader would say, "There is no conflict". There is a certain unity to life, and to reality, and maybe what disturbed me about it was the contrast, not the attempt to reconcile it. Anyway, as I've thoroughly lost any point I may have been trying to make, I think I'll stop my rambling here. Thank you for your patience, and good day.