Friday Zombie Blogging: Facebook Zombie Game

This Facebook game lets members "bite" each other and turn them into zombies, indicated by an image on their page. Not being on Facebook myself, I don't know what it feels like to be bitten this way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It probably tickles.
PPS - But only slightly.

I can't make small talk

I'm not practised at speaking to strangers. Twice in one day someone new spoke to me, just to comment about the bus situation. Each time I made a bland sort of "Oh well" comment then went back to my MP3 player, just staring into space.

I just don't know how to handle small talk situations.
"The bus is slow today."
"Yes. Yes it is. ... It was also slow yesterday."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's just awkward.
PPS - It seems only a small percentage of people are good small talkers.

"Cliology" and the Singularity

While reading "In the Country of the Blind" by Michael Flynn, I got to thinking about whether the hypothetical "science of future history" known as Cliology would ever be undone by the rapid pace of change in society. For instance, if the input variables to your equations change before you can solve them, then the answer does you no good, does it? Similarly a prediction based on stale data would be no good, and data gets stale much more quickly now than it used to. That trend will increase until the predictions are stale before you can make them, no matter how quickly you make them. That's the Singularity, where the pace of progress breaks its own sort of speed barrier, makes a sonic boom and comes out the other side.

An interesting side note would be that Cliology could predict the time of its own death if the pace of change can be measured accurately.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Another possibility is that Cliology just gets harder.
PPS - And requires quantum computers.

The "point of view gun"

Doesn't the "point of view gun" from the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie mean that the women who commissioned it were unable to communicate their points of view? The implication is that this was the fault of the men who listened to them, but it could equally be their own presentation of the information that failed to properly register with their audience.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Unless everything is the fault of men.
PPS - That depends on who you ask.

Colour matching for foundation

Watching Deb doing her Mary Kay make-up party on Saturday, I couldn't help but wonder if there's a more precise way to match a foundation colour to a face. I imagine a spectrometer to measure the skin tone exactly and some simple software to suggest a match. Better yet, it would be possible to mix a tone specifically matched for a particular face. This would all have to be packaged appropriately for a beauty consultant, though. If it starts looking like the paint mixer down at the hardware store, I think it would lose its appeal, even if the results are the same.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Wikipedia article on specrometers.
PPS - It doesn't mention paint or make-up.

Potential home 3D printing applications

Just a few thoughts on practical home applications for 3D printing:

• Model building (ie planes, ships and cars)
• Miniature figurines (ie Warhammer)
• Board game pieces (eg chess, Monopoly)
• Artificial potplants
• Temporary replacement parts for home plumbing
• Single-use cutting boards
• Constructing extra plates, cups and utensils for entertaining
• Home jewellery making
• Download-and-print phone shells
• Toy making
• Perfect-fit glasses frames
• Extra storage containers

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The equipment must get cheaper first, though.
PPS - I think that's just a matter of time.

The Sunday Mok - Jellicles Can and Jellicles Do

Sunday - The final day of the Emmaus camp, including a breakfast gift drop and one at lunch. To pass the time between those two events, I played Puzzle Quest. I took a nap and watched Star Trek with Deb before dinner and church. I ran the computer, then six of us had supper at the Coffee Club.
Monday - I worked on database design all day at work and left at 17:00, but the bus was full. I missed the backup bus by just one second, so I had to wait fifteen minutes. Deb went to her meeting and I stayed home doing the dishes and watching TV.
Tuesday - I read Harry Potter on the bus to and from work and clarified some points of the database design with Ross and Paul. Karate in the evening was focused on self defence in sparring.
Wednesday - I tinkered with some Windows PowerShell scripting at work during down time and when I left the bus was full again. Deb, Mia, Sam and I had dinner with Linda, recently returned from Guam. Bible study followed, then Deb and I moved some tables around at home in preparation for our new internet setup.
Thursday - I got a new small project at work, but it took me two days to figure it out properly. I feel like a slow learner sometimes. Dad took Anthony, Deb and me to dinner at Sizzler and we happened to see Sam and Mia there too.
Friday - The day at work was much like Thursday. When I got home, Deb and I had a fairly quick dinner together, then headed to the church. It was raining, so our original plan of going to the golf driving range was postponed. We played games at the church instead.
Saturday - I woke earlier than I otherwise would have to wait for the contractor who is doing the fence. He didn't show up. I did some laundry, then Deb and I tried to get to a movie with Mia, but parking was too crazy and we missed the start. In the evening Deb and I saw Cats at Harvest Rain. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I expected.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I had a headache during the day.
PPS - I should have drunk more water.

Friday Zombie Blogging - I like turtles

Zombie kid likes turtles. That's about all there is to say.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know this is a bit old now.
PPS - It's still kinda funny.

Image retargeting software demo

This is the most incredible thing I've seen online in a while. Dynamic resizing of images based on what's "interesting" or "important". The video of the software in action will blow you away.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I have nothing to add, but just wanted to share it.
PPS - I already linked to it in my sidebar to the right.

Disposable contact details

There are a few services that can provide you with "disposable" email addresses like Spam Gourmet, and even one or two for disposable phone numbers (eg Numbr). They're useful for when you need a genuine email or phone number, but you don't want it to stay valid forever. For instance, when you're using your email address to sign up for some websites, it's nice if that address becomes meaningless after a week so they can't spam you.

The idea could be extended further, too. Some services (American Express, for example) offer disposable credit card numbers to avoid fraud. It wouldn't take too much to set up disposable postal addresses via post office boxes or coded addresses at a proxy company. It would be harder to have a disposable physical drop-in address, though that could be done with a large building that rents out cubicles for very short periods.

Past there it gets a bit philosophical. Could you have a disposable name? You'd have to answer to it for a while, but then you just aren't called that name any more.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Disposable birth dates? Disposable mother's maiden name?
PPS - Those are almost completely meaningless.

Printable whiteboard

We have whiteboards at work that can print their contents directly, which can be handy. It got me thinking, however, about whether you could go the other way and have an image print onto a whiteboard with dry-erase ink. If you can scan the images to a digital file, then the two put together make a whiteboard with a memory that can be recalled at any later date. You could keep one diagram on the board for weekly meetings and still allow the board to be used for the rest of the week.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not that big a leap of tech logic.
PPS - I've just never seen a whiteboard you can print to.

Computer literacy and malfunctions

I have a slightly mystical theory that when you understand computers and software they behave better for you. It might just be that you start knowing how to treat the machine and its contents better, which would make it a less interesting observation, but I have seen it repeatedly. Somehow the least computer literate people seem to have the most unusual problems with their machines. I've observed it a few times. It might be something deeper going on, like the more you understand the machine the more you see the smaller warning signs, or maybe you just know proper computer maintenance. Whatever the cause, I think it's an interesting phenomenon.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd actually rather not investigate it too deeply.
PPS - Just in case it seems less magical at the source.

The reason men don't do skin care

For a little while now I've been a test dummy for some of Deb's skin care products, and I've developed a theory on why men don't use anything like that. Reason one is that it's too girly, but besides that, I have another theory.

Skin care products are too fiddly. You have to wet your face, smear on this one product, wipe it off with a warm towel, put this other product on a cotton ball and wipe that all over your face and so on. It's just too much to bother with every day. It might be okay if it was like a fixed term prescription that you do for three weeks and then you're fine, but it's once or twice a day for the rest of your life. As men, we can't imagine that's the easiest way. Someone, somewhere must be optimising this whole process.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know there are products in "soap bar" configurations for men.
PPS - That's the kind of thing we need.

The Sunday Mok - God's Gift Ninja

Sunday - We had guest speakers at each church service. Deb and I did the grocery shopping around lunchtime, then watched Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. After the evening church service, we joined the local Baptists at the Coffee Club.
Monday - I finished Hunters of Dune in the morning. Most of the work day was pretty boring. While Deb was out at her Mary Kay meeting, I watched recorded TV on my PC.
Tuesday - The Telstra technicians came to move our cable internet connection downstairs in the morning. I had to revert some of my recent code changes at work, because they were causing more problems than they were fixing. Karate in the evening, then Deb and I had enchiladas for dinner.
Wednesday - Public holiday for the Ekka. Deb and I decided not to go, since the chances of getting sick again were pretty high. Instead we had pancakes for breakfast, relaxed and watched Star Trek. In the evening we had dinner with Murrae and Tracey and saw License to Wed.
Thursday - I went to work early so I could leave early. I had to drive out to a campsite to give out small presents in secret. René and I didn't end up doing it ourselves, though, because the chocolates were deemed "not special enough" and had to be replaced.
Friday - A repeat of the early start at work and a drive over to the campsite in the evening. Between a gift drop for dinner and bedtime, I had little to do besides read.
Saturday - A drive out very early for a breakfast gift drop, then back home. I navigated for Deb to a meeting, then did some shopping before going home for a nap. In the afternoon I drove home again for a dinner gift drop, then another bedtime one.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The drive to and from the campsite is along a gravel road.
PPS - The rain washed my car for me at the end.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Diary of the Dead

I linked to George Romero's latest zombie movie, Diary of the Dead back when it was just-announced news. Apparently, it's ready now. I wasn't expecting that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm curious to see what it will be like.
PPS - Probably pretty frantic at times.

Copyright and a bounty hunter metaphor

My own ideas on copyright law and intellectual works rights have been challenged by an essay (or, rather, a short book) at http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/bountyhunters.htm. It explains copyright law and the surrounding history in terms of a wild west bounty hunter metaphor. The key concept to get out of my head is that copyright and patent law exist to reward the labour of producing intellectual works. The works so produced do not amount to a physical product, but are to be treated as such for the purposes of rewarding the creators, and that only for a limited time. The reason we do it that way is because it's easier than deciding to pay an author in advance for a book that might turn out to be rubbish. If authors were salary workers, there wouldn't be any intellectual property law.

These laws exist as a way of smoothing out a quality curve in supply and demand. All artistic works are not made equal, and those that are more worthy are to be rewarded more. The way we decide what is worthy is by deferring payment until the work is complete and letting the market sort it out. In order to do that, though, we need to have something to sell, and that is the reproduction rights to the work in question. That creates an easy misconception in some authors that the works they create are physical things.

Intellectual works are treated as physical things to reward the labour of producing them. If you've waited 42 years and not heard peep about your magnum opus, chances are good that you should have become a doctor like mother wanted. If you spend two years writing a mediocre book and over the next 42 years you make enough to pay back what you lived on during those two years, you've broken even, although it did take you 42 years to do so. If you spend two years writing a book and start making back enough to pay for a comfortable life, chances are that you'd want to protect that income stream rather than work some more. That's where the problem lies: laziness and greed.

Good authors should be rewarded. Mediocre authors should be rewarded too, but not as much.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Bad authors need not be actively punished.
PPS - The market will do so passively for us.

Offline

Having finally moved Anthony's computer downstairs, Deb and I are now left without an internet connection upstairs. I've called in the relevant service providers, but it will still be at least four more working days before we're hooked up. This could mean some disruption to my usual activities, including The Sunday Mok. Please bear with me on that.

Now the observation of the day is this: I have a feeling that there will come a day when your internet connection is as easy to set up as electricity when you move into a new house. In other words, you won't even have to think about it, because it's just a given. Plug in and go (or maybe your wireless connection follows you everywhere). But, at the same time, I realise that such a thing will take a little time to materialise. There are a few political changes that would have to take place before data communications are as ubiquitous and assumed as electricity.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - We are moving in that direction, though.
PPS - Give it time.

Decreasing content

I've noticed that my blog drafts file has shrunk to less than the size of my Messenger quotes file. I haven't been drafting that many blog posts recently, which would explain the decrease in size, and I also know that my quotes file is only likely to increase as time goes on. I use one quote per day, but to find the better nuggets among my blog drafts, I may discard five or six at a time. Creativity is expensive that way.
My other option is to raid my "writing" file, which contains unfinished and half-imagined pieces of general fiction writing and poetry. Of course, that well is not bottomless, and it may eventually run dry too. At that point, I imagine I will just have to stop blogging entirely, as there will be nothing left to say.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There's still a fair bit to post here, though.
PPS - I'll still be here for another week at least. ;)

Compensating philosophers

I had a thought about copyright and artist compensation. The whole system is a bit like rewarding philosophers. If we have a pack of philosophers sitting around thinking, we could pay them all a salary, but we don't actually know they're doing anything valuable. Therefore, we delay their payment until later. They struggle to survive in the meantime, but we know we're getting quality product. Then the whole thing becomes a bit more popular, so we take the payment scheme to the people and let them decide whether to pay the philosophers, because what we're really after is popular philosophy.

Now we have to realise that the philosophers are not producing anything that can be controlled. It's thought, not things. Therefore we are paying them not for what they produce, but for their productive labour. That's what paying for music is about - rewarding artists for their efforts, not (directly) for the music they produce.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Paying for copies of the music is, however, the easiest way to pay artists for effort.
PPS - The same goes for books, movies and television.

A poem about exhaustion

I could pass out right now
Would anyone mind?
I'll find a quiet spot in the corner
And not bother anyone, I swear.
Can someone find me a pillow?
And maybe a blanket, too.
Cheers.
I'll just be over here.
Wake me if the world is ending.
I don't wanna miss that.
Or if the royal family drops by for tea.
But not Prince Charles.
Nighty-night. Or afternoon - either way.
I'll see you guys in a bit,
When I'm done dreaming of electric sheep
And heavy-duty shears.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think we all feel like curling up to sleep sometimes.
PPS - I know I do.

The Sunday Mok - Noisiest fish ever

Sunday - I had a little back pain as a residual sickness symptom. After church in the morning, I watched some old recorded Simpsons episodes and read news online. I spent some time with Dad in the afternoon and ran the computer in the evening church service.
Monday - I returned to work after my almost complete week off. I spent the day tracking down timesheet issues. While waiting for the bus home, someone honked and waved to me, but I couldn't see who. Deb was at a meeting in the evening, so I used the time alone to catch up on television.
Tuesday - More of the same at work. Karate in the evening was heavy on the leg-work. Back home we cleared out some of Anthony's stuff from his old room which is becoming Deb's Mary Kay office.
Wednesday - I've been reading Hunters of Dune on the bus to and from work. Deb and I shared dinner with Sam and Mia before bible study where we talked about endurance.
Thursday - Deb and I got pizza for dinner because Dad and Beth are on the Gold Coast with relatives. We watched a whole disc of Scrubs - seven episodes.
Friday - I made a salad for dinner because neither Deb nor I were really hungry. We went to youth group in the evening, but no kids did. So back at home Deb and I moved Dad's old book case downstairs. Deb bought a fish.
Saturday - I had breakfast with some of the other youth leaders in the suburb, then got a haircut. Deb and I drove to OfficeWorks and bought her a label printer for her business, then I tackled several of my tasks from my lists. While Deb did a small Mary Kay class, Murrae and I played Zombies and we finished a game for the first time. I won. Dinner with Dad at Taj Bengal, Ashgrove.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The fish likes to bubble at the water surface or something.
PPS - It's the most noise I've ever heard a fish make.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Thriller re-enacted

This is the single most awesome zombie dance I've seen. A large group of prison inmates successfully freaks out a cross-dressing fellow prisoner by performing Michael Jackson's Thriller, complete with the original dance moves.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It looks like this is not the only performance they do, either.
PPS - Must be a regular program at this prison.

Facts schmacts

Facts alone are not convincing. Facts alone are not even an argument - they must be interpreted, and the interpreter must start with some assumptions. Without assumptions, there is no framework in which to make sense of the facts. Creationists and evolutionists butt heads so often because they come from totally different assumptions at exactly the same facts without recognising what they're assuming. Each also assumes that the other side needs only to "see the facts" and they will be convinced. When the raw facts are presented, each side interprets them according to their own assumptions, then wonders why the other side comes to different conclusions when the facts are so "clear".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You can't argue without questioning your assumptions.
PPS - Otherwise you're just ranting, not engaging in debate.

Google Reader strategy

I'm constantly setting up procedures and processes for actions I take in my mind. When I see that I have a problem, I review my procedures and try to make a fix. When I come across a new situation to handle, I try to add it to my routine. My most recent adjustment has been in handling starred items on Google Reader. I come across a lot of stories that I might like to read, but can't read right away because of time or perhaps because it's more appropriate to read at home. But they were just building up and never getting processed, so I started a new rule. When I am reading my starred items, I start at the top and do not skip items. This forces me to make some hard choices about the articles. I can either read it right away or apply a new tag: "notnow" (when I don't feel like reading) or "home" (if I'd rather read at home). If I come across an article I have previously tagged as "notnow" and I still don't feel like it, chances are that I will *never* feel like reading it, so I dump it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The bonus side effect is a ready-tagged list of articles for home reading.
PPS - So far, this is an improvement on the previous ad-hoc reading method.

Space Invader vandalised?

A little while ago, I put some thumb tacks on my cubicle wall in the shape of a Space Invader. I thought it was moderately cool, but nothing too special. I took a photo, too. Last week while I was away sick, two of the tacks disappeared. I wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not - they could easily have been brushed off or just fallen. Then I thought of something: the two missing tacks formed one of the Invader's antennae. From one point of view, this could be seen as an equivalent prank to shaving off one of a person's eyebrows while they sleep.

Now the question is this: do I replace them, pretending nothing has happened, or do I "shave" off the other antenna and slowly "grow" them back over a week or two to see if anyone chuckles as they walk past?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't decided yet.
PPS - And it seems unlikely the "prank" is deliberate.

Flat-rate music

Music is neither a product nor a service. It is a by-product of artists contributing to a culture. We pay them for the result because that is the best way to determine if their contributions are worthwhile. I love Cory Doctorow's idea of setting up a flat rate collection service for, say, college bands and collecting 50c per US college student per month for unlimited access to college band music for whatever purposes they desire. It is, frankly, a stroke of genius, even if it's just a repetition of the revolutionary model of the past when radio appeared to challenge record sales. Extend the model to the ISP level and we have a functional economic framework to build on. If your Internet subscription includes unlimited access to a music library as part of the flat fee, then suddenly file sharing is not a problem any more (since everyone has the library, the only reason to torrent is for faster access) and neither is DRM (why try to limit the use of what is free to everyone?) and any investment in music is automatically transferable (because the library will still be accessible on your new device and ISP too). The entire debate boils down to "how much do we charge for this?".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Doubtless music publishers would want a few hundred dollars per customer per month.
PPS - They'd base their argument on the price of CDs.

A little game of Would You Rather

Would you rather:

- Fall from a plane or drown?
I'll take the plane. At least the ride down would be exciting.

- Star in a movie or direct it?
Star for sure.

- Find buried treasure or an Egyptian tomb?
Let's go with treasure, just because it lets me talk like a pirate. Yar.

- Live underwater or underground?
Underground seems a little less perilous.

- Have wings or gecko-like hands?
I'll go with the gecko hands so I could crawl up buildings like Spiderman.

- Be half your current height or double it?
Tricky. I think half height would be slightly more manageable.

- Survive a car crash or a plane crash?
A plane crash is more dramatic.

- Know all the past but none of the future or all of the future and none of the past?
Knowing the past would result in a more practical existence.

- Build a house or a stadium?
A house, as long as it's a cool one.

- Visit the North or the South pole?
Arbitrarily, I pick the South pole.

- Live in a desert or a rainforest?
Rainforest so I could live in a treehouse.

- Sculpt or paint?
I feel like sculpting would be cooler, but it's harder to share online.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - These are my own questions.
PPS - I'd like to hear other people's answers too.

The Sunday Mok - A pair of sickos

Sunday - I started feeling sick, and was upset that I had to miss both church services. While Deb went out to do the grocery shopping, I watched Simpsons DVDs at home. When Deb returned, we watched Scrubs.
Monday - I stayed home from work, relaxing and reading news online with a nap around lunchtime.
Tuesday - I went back to work against Deb's wishes and had a rotten day. I made an expensive mistake, too, so this was mostly a bad day. In the evening, we watched Mr Deeds.
Wednesday - I stayed home from work for the rest of the week. Deb and I watched Heroes that I'd recorded earlier. I saw the doctor in the afternoon for an excuse note and some medication.
Thursday - The electricians came by to replace a light switch and power outlet. I played City of Heroes briefly and Deb and I finished Heroes volume 1. I was feeling a bit better in the evening, but Deb had started feeling ill, so I made dinner.
Friday - Very early in the morning I was hit with a monster fever. Deb gave me some ibuprofen and put me in a cold shower because it wasn't breaking by itself. For the rest of the day I read news online. I had to skip youth group in the evening.
Saturday - More news reading, especially during Deb's first solo Mary Kay class. In the evening we went to the Hog's Breath Cafe to celebrate the class.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I watch a lot more TV and DVDs when I'm sick.
PPS - Good thing it's not all the time.

Redacted Vanilla Ice lyrics

Looking back at the lyrics of Vanilla Ice, it's no wonder it didn't stick for long. Half of the words are "yeah", "go" or other empty phrases like "you know what I'm sayin'". I've grabbed the lyrics to "Ninja Rap" (mostly because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 was the most recent place I saw Mr Ice's work) and I've cut out the empty words. Here's what's left:

... green machine -- ... without bein’ seen
... you ever seen a turtle ...?
... the power of the ninja turtle ...
... the turtles are sayin:
Chorus:
Ninja, Ninja, RAP!
... heroes in green ...
team of four -- Ninja Turtles ...
Chorus
Villians, ... run ... -- ...
Choose your weapon ...
... Ninja Turtle ...
... power ... Ninja ... strong -- Fightin’ ... crooks ... out cold

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Not much to it, is there?
PPS - Yes, I did cut out a lot to make my point.

Friday Zombie Blogging: an article

This article is simply in praise and defence of the zombie movie genre. I like the stuff about zombies being a political metaphor. That mirrors my own thoughts on the issue, though I think it can go even further than that. Zombies can be a metaphor for other things too. Anyway, it's a good little article, and I recommend reading it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't checked out the game linked at the end.
PPS - But I will.

Saving water

I have received an email titled "Letter from 2070". Leaving aside the fact that this "letter" is written in PowerPoint (perhaps people in the future forgot about plain text) I found the content of the letter more annoying than moving. It paints an over-simplified and deliberately shocking picture of the future where water is more scarce and valuable than gold and diamonds. It speaks of decreased life expectancy and widespread disease. It blames all of this on each individual reader for using too much water and cutting down all the trees.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't drive the bulldozers that are destroying our rainforests. I don't play with the hose for fun. I don't even have a dog to wash, and my daily bathing for showers takes less than four minutes. Am I personally to blame for the destruction of rainforests and our dwindling water supplies? I submit that I am no longer part of the problem.

Feeling bad about environmental issues is clearly not enough. Most of us do that already. We need to start having a positive effect on the environment, not just a neutral one. If we're already feeling bad and urging each other to save water, save power and eliminate landfill, then where is the problem? I'd say it's because the effect of reducing our environmental impact just slows the decay. We can't fill up the dams again by using the remaining water more slowly.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't have a water tank at home.
PPS - That would be the next step.

Botnet spam

Economically speaking, I don't believe the fight against spam is going to be won at the source. The cost of sending spam via a compromised computer is zero, and the cost of compromising more computers into the botnet is zero after the first one (since compromised machines also seek others to compromise). So as long as there's just one sucker in the world who is desperate enough to buy from a spammer, the spammer's investment has paid off.

I thought about proposing some kind of "honeypot" scheme where millions of fake or virtual computers are compromised and discarded instead of real machines. That might reduce the number of real bot computers slightly, but if real machines are still getting cracked, the problem remains.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't have any answers, I guess.
PPS - Except that everyone needs to stop responding to spam.