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Just poking through my friends list, which has a feed of blog entries that mention me, and came up with this posting at Monsters and Rockets about a sneak preview of a new game based on the sequel, TRON Legacy. Looks nifty. Too bad I don't have cable to see the show...and I'm not very good at video games anyway.Current Mood:  awake |
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Current Music: Kap Bambino -- Batcaves |
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http://www.advogato.org/person/ingvar/diary.html?start=306 So, one of the users of my Image library asked if
there wasn't any way of using a font other than the rather
ugly, built-in one. I said, roughly, "you can define a new
one, in an analogous fashion to how the built-in oine is
done?"
Apparently, that was not the wished-for answer and I
started thinking. Bit-mapped fonts are (relatively) easy to
deal with. There's a helluva lot of bitmapped fonts for
X11. So, I set forth to code up a reader for PCF fonts,
converting the bitmaps to internal format and some multi-
font support in Image. All done, now.
Common Lisp is still very pleasant when dealing with binary
file I/O, even if I wished that there was an easy way of
changing the binaryness of a file on the fly. |
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http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/pinkglove.asp Is Medline donating money to breast cancer-related charities in conjunction with a 'Pink Glove' promotion? |
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Nov. 26th, 2009 @ 04:59 pm
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Apparently McDonald's is closed today. Thanksgiving McNuggetini: DENIED.
(Previously.)
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*
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Nov. 26th, 2009 @ 03:01 pm
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Current Music: Metric -- Help I'm Alive |
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This is a fascinating might-have-been, a six episode script for the first season of Doctor Who telling the story of a murder conspiracy against Alexander the Great, by Moris Farhi. It is moderately thrilling stuff: the plot is tight; the characterisation of the Tardis team, Alexander and his generals very good; the sense of historical predestination also consistent with Who as it developed.
But it could never have been made. It's not because of the numerous hostages to continuity offered by Farhi's script - language-teaching machine in the Tardis, the Doctor's belief in God, Susan's statements about their home time - these would have been weeded out in the editorial process. It is not even that the Tardis crew don't really impact events (though that is a weakness of the story). It is simply that it is too sad: Alexander's three closest friends all fall victims to the conspirators, followed by Alexander himself, leaving his realm to be divided between the complicit Seleucus and the loyal Ptolemy. As one of the commentaries in this edition puts it, Barbara and Susan shed more tears in this script than Rose Tyler does in her entire career.
We also have a bonus here, a single episode story (or perhaps the last episode of an unwritten longer story), The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, in which the Tardis crew visits a planet where one of the locals literally dies of love for Barbara. It is also too sad to ever have been turned into a broadcast story, but I think that today's fanficcers would love it - it's totally in tune with the idea of takiing the show's characters to places that the show's writers never could.
So this is strongly recommended, though for slightly different reasons than I though it might be: good emotional character-driven writing, and a glimpse of how Doctor Who mght have been.
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I think I've almost managed to get the DNA Lounge popup webcast window to resize the video when you resize the window. (Unsurprisingly, the only way that worked portably was to use tables.) Does it work for you? This seems to resize properly in both Firefox and Safari. It mostly works in Opera: it resizes properly, but there's a scrollbar and the bottom text is off the bottom of the screen. I'm not sure how to fix that. What does it do in IE? Does the video resize, and is there a green box around it? Previously. Current Music: Headscan -- Metadata |
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DNA Lounge update, wherein the War on Fun gets some more press. Current Music: Massive Attack -- Small Time Short Away |
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http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/climategate.html Various folks are getting upset for one reason or another about the hacking and redistribution of internal emails from the University of East Anglia's climate research unit.
Frankly, I can't be arsed commenting on it — because marine biologist and SF writer Peter Watts has already said it for me: The fact is, we are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment. We can no more shake off our biases than Liz Cheney could pay a compliment to Barack Obama. The best we can do-- the best science can do-- is make sure that at least, we get to choose among competing biases.
That's how science works. It's not a hippie love-in; it's rugby. ... Science is so powerful that it drags us kicking and screaming towards the truth despite our best efforts to avoid it. And it does that at least partly fueled by our pettiness and our rivalries. Science is alchemy: it turns shit into gold. Keep that in mind the next time some blogger decries the ill manners of a bunch of climate scientists under continual siege by forces with vastly deeper pockets and much louder megaphones. No comments on this bully-pulpit effusion, folks; it's going to attract trolls, and I simply can't be arsed dealing with them. (Going to a Gary Numan gig this evening, then the pub, then bed, then back to work on the novel. And when I get through it, the planet's still not going to be statistically significantly colder. OK?)
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7654&rss Further information has been released regarding Microsoft Security Advisory (977981), previously rep ...(more)... |
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7651&rss On this day of Thanksgiving in America, I'd like to take the opportunity, and give you the readers t ...(more)... |
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I asked the telco guy who was just here to fix the problem with my DSL (he said he simply patched me to a different cable bundle) if they connected another line on Monday. He said he didn't know, only handles faults - but that he actually had another open ticket just 2 floors down...
Whatever, I seem to have full connectivity again. |
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This cartoon is in today's European Voice, along with a profile of Catherine Ashton:
There is no explanation in the article of why she is depicted in this way, so a lot of European Voice readers will be mildly puzzled.
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/bestbuy2009.asp A Thanksgiving advertising circular issued by Best Buy wishes readers a "Happy Eid al-Adha." |
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091125.html  If you could go far away from the Earth and look around the entire sky --
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Hey LISPers. I'm using Scheme. Please don't kill me.
I have a question that I can't seem to answer. Here's the code:
(define final '())
(cond ( (< frst scnd)
(define final (cons final frst)) (define final (cons final scnd))
)
This is what it's supposed to mean:
First, final is defined to null.
We have a condition statement. It states....
If first is less than second, define final by concatenating the variable first to the end of final
then, define final by concatenating the variable second to the end of final.
Of course, it gives me the following error:
define: not allowed in an expression context in: (define final (cons final first))
Any idea why, and how to fix it? :\
Thanks.
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7648&rss And finally, before those of us in the US trip out on tryptophan tomorrow, I've updated a few of the ...(more)... |
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It may happen that you wish to replace some string throughout a git repository and its history. This can be done with a combination of rpl and git filter-branch. The former recursively replaces strings in a directory and the latter applies it to all items in the history. So for example,
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rpl -iR oldstring newstring *' HEAD
will do the job. If this branch tracks a remote, then untrack it,
git remote rm origin
rm -rf .git/refs/original
Now this is a freestanding branch which can be pushed to a new remote. Note that everyone who cloned from an existing remote that has been replaced will need to discard their files and clone again, because all the IDs for the entire history will have changed. Also it appears that newstring has to be non-empty; I tried "" but it doesn't work in filter-branch because rpl wants to query the user to make sure it's OK to replace with an empty string.
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Tweaks and enhancements
- In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
- We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
- We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
- You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
- Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.
Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!
Photos of the weekWe're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.
Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!
( Read more... ) CurtainsThanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7645&rss We've been informed by several readers that they've received updates from Microsoft in the last 24 h ...(more)... |
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DNA Lounge update, wherein this battle station is now fully operational. Current Music: Heartsrevolution -- Dance Till Dawn |
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Mussolini's 'brain and blood for sale on internet' The granddaughter of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini has said that blood and parts of his brain have been stolen to sell on the internet. Alessandra Mussolini, a former showgirl turned MP, said she immediately informed the police when she found out. The listing, on auction site Ebay, reportedly showed images of a wooden container and ampoules of blood. The initial price requested for the material was $22,000. Current Music: Mussolini Headkick -- Holy War |
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http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/more_holding_patterns.html If you're wondering what this week's excuse for scanty blog updates could possibly be, it might have something to do with me being 40,000 words into the (projected) 100,000 word first draft of 2011's novel, "Rule 34". It's a sequel to "Halting State", set some five years after the earlier novel, and focusing on the way our definitions of crime and morality (not to mention the practice of policing) change over time. (Yes, the title is an explicit call-out to you-know-what. The term "Hitler Yaoi" has been used with intent ... but only after I googled, rubbed my eyes, and concluded that rule 34 was in effect.)
So it's with some interest that I spotted this news item on the web today. Nutshell version: Dennis O'Connor, HM Chief Inspector of Police, has issued a report on the conduct of public order policing (commissioned in the aftermath of the G20 protests in April). It's damning in its condemnation of heavy-handed tactics adopted primarily by the London Metropolitan Police, in emulation of crowd-control techniques used on the continent and in the United States: "The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an 'approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent'."
All I can say is: it's overdue. The Americanization of British policing has visibly been in train for a decade now — and not in a good way. The culture of Britain's police forces sprang from very different roots, and the increasing emphasis on bureaucratization, pre-emption through the threat of massive force, and alienation from the public that has characterised the current government's tinkering with the machinery of law and order is a radical and unwelcome departure. It's given us such travesties as the RIPA Act, with its implicit abolition of the right to silence (the first victim of whose anti-terrorism provisions appears to be a harmless schizophrenic), the practice of police routinely arresting people in order to justify collecting DNA samples, and the use of police intelligence apparatus to help corporations snoop on protestors. The creeping expansion of police surveillance and suspicion of legitimate political dissent — I'm not talking about bomb-makers here, but simply people who want to demonstrate in public their disagreement with government policies — is deeply worrying. Let's hope that the O'Connor report marks the beginning of a sea change in the relationship between the British police forces and the public, away from the American/European paramilitary model and back towards "the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."
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Current Music: The Hope Blister -- The Outer Skin |
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http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/forthood.asp Photograph shows former president George W. Bush and Laura Bush visiting a soldier wounded in the Fort Hood shootings. |
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Can Evil be Stopped in Time for Tea?
I betatested their rather unique character generation last spring on GothCon, and I found it highly addictive. I bought the main rulebook and the Life Board about two weeks ago, and I can recommend them both.Current Mood:  pleased |
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Today I went to the hospital to get the stitches taken out. Since I can neither drive nor take public transport, I get a free taxi ride to and from the hospital, so it's no problem getting there. The stitches turned out to be tiny staples, which apparently makes the scar less ugly, and it only took a couple of minutes to get them all out. It wasn't too painful either.
The doctor came and had a look at the leg. She had me show that the joint works, which it does, but it's a bit painful to move the foot around. Also I'm not supposed to do it yet as it can cause motion around the break. I told her that there's a patch of skin where I can't feel anything when it's touched. She said that probably there'd been some damage to the skin or nerves and that it'll probably take a year or two to heal, but it's not actually harmful. If I don't get the feeling back I'll just have to keep an eye out for any hurts that I don't feel. The area is just a few square centimetres, so it's not a big deal.
Then I got the cast adjusted since there was some chafing, and they tightened it up a bit and gave me a new sock-type bandage. And that was that.
I'm still supposed to keep the leg elevated and not put any weight on the foot at all. I'm getting a new appointment in two weeks to be X-rayed. If it looks OK then I may be allowed to actually touch the floor with the foot.
I'm managing without the morphine in the daytime. Nights are worse; I still wake up once or twice from pain, but I think part of that is from the chafing so it might get better now after the adjustment.
All in all, it seems to be healing as it should. Now I'm back in bed with a cat on my chest. I was too tired to get some proper food when I got back home, so I just had a sandwich. In a few hours when I'm a bit more rested I'll get something more filling, but for now it's very nice just lying here, watching Torchwood, with a purring cat keeping me company.Current Mood:  tired |
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I'm sure plenty on my friendlist have installed a cat flap at one point: how do you do it? I want to install one on the window of my study - do I have to call a glazier? Do I have to buy the thing to cut the glass with? Can I rent it? Is it easy to do? |
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Grump
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Nov. 25th, 2009 @ 08:12 am
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The sun rises, after a night of storm and violent rain, the cats are lounging around purring, AND I HAVE A GODALMIGHTY SORE THROAT DAMMIT.
I am really really tired of being sick. End of line. |
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http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/saguaro.asp Saguaro revenge: A man is killed by the cactus he shot. |
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091124.html  What's happening on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus?
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7642&rss Rather than do 4 one-liners in a row, I'll just do this one regular story. A number of our fav ...(more)... |
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Not a brilliant start of the day for me: I woke up groggy after finishing a job at two o'clock or therabout - partly thanks to VMWare Fusion blowing up on me, thanks so much VMWare - set out for the tube already late for the shelter, and realized at the entrance that the 20 pound note I had put in my pocket was no longer there.
Went back with eyes peeled, but no 20 pounds. Came back with Oyster card and eyes peeled so further back that you could see the back of my retinas, still no 20 pounds.
A hundred yards from the shelter I noticed a very poorly pigeon flapping on the pavement. I thought about it a little, went to the shelter, asked for advice, and after a brief betrayal of a less than pure-gold animalist soul ("There's a dying pigeon out there!" "Good!") the receptionist told me to bring it in by any means. I took a towel and went to collect the pigeon.
I picked it up and holding it in the towel I felt pretty sure that this was not a pigeon who was pining for the fjords any more, it was not a pigeon that was tired after a long squack, in fact that was an ex-pigeon, who had gone to join the choir agelicus, had passed on, had gone to meet its maker, and would have been pushing up the daisies if it wasn't wrapped in cotton.
However the vet came out and took the bundle, and I went away feeling virtuos, although "I saved a dead pigeon!" doesn't sound so good.
I busily cleaned cat cabins for four solid hours, somewhat distracted by the fact that the blue block is next to the kitten garden where three kittens were burning off an amount of calories I'd have sworn could only be stored by about three times as much mass as they had combined, but when I went upstairs for a cup of coffee I met the vet nurse and he told me that the pigeon wasn't dead, it was in shock, and that the vet had managed to revive it.
I am dead chuffed. Although ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sciamanna pointed out that if I'd done that in Milan (or even worse, Venice) I'd likely be shot.
To illustrate what a REAL full-blown animal lover is like, the cattery staff supervisor showed real worry for the pigeon's partner (apparently they pair for life).
I came back home, ate, fell on the sofa in the usual stupor, and woke up with a nasty nasty nasty sore throat. I have, predictably, also a bit of a fever. Ohhh right, that was why I have been feeling so crappy the last few days then. What joy.
BTW - the Mayhew is chock-full of kittens right now, very unusually. This is normally not kitten season, but they are apparently deluged with them. So if you want a tiny feline, or feel up to fostering, they are looking both for adoptees and fosterers right now.
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http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7636&rss The other ISC (Internet Systems Consortium) has released a security advisory on BIND and security pa ...(more)... |
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Nov. 24th, 2009 @ 05:00 pm
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A frustrating day today. I've been unable to find anything which can
do what I want when it comes to UPS and power monitoring. Despite a day of
searching (including for an email address for Eaton in the UK) I'm coming up
short. Annoying doesn't quite cover it. Surely we can't be the only people
with a server room/data centre who have something approaching this problem...
Last night's ergo session was interesting. While I was obviously behind some
of the real powerhouses in the men's squad it was nice to see that I was ahead
of some of my younger (but similarly skilled contemporaries). I'll admit that
these last few weeks I haven't been training quite as much as them (especially
when it comes to weights and erg sessions) but the injuries I've had certainly
needed some time away from that kind of exercise. Hopefully I'll have a
chance between now and 14 December to pick up my game a little as that's when
we do our next round of tests. Weights tonight though, then something scrummy
to eat courtesy of the lovely (and currently contemplating her future) Kris.
Oh, and the team leader of the web team has just come through and asked for a
major architectural change to the Xen setup I created for him and his team
about two years ago. I hope I can remember what the hell I need to do to make
the changes he wants! |
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Fancy hosting the next ILC in your home town?
It is time to begin preparing for ILC-2011, the International Lisp Conference 2011. As a first step, the ALU is soliciting bids for locations to host this conference.
Right now, the ALU is looking for plausible venues. Bids should show what the conference might look like, but not specify how to actually run it. A few phone calls may be helpful in getting estimates, but don't worry about getting details. Your bid is just a proposal; the ALU will request more information as bids are being evaluated. Submitting a bid does not bind you to execute it; the decision to commit can be made later.
More details here.
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Since yesterday evening I have constant re-trains on my DSL at home. Smells like the incumbent telco connected one subscriber too many in the cable bundle, because the problem went away shortly after midnight and reappeared at about 7.30am.
Have told the ISP to throttle the line at 2 MBit/s, and it appears stable - for now. Had them also lodge a fault with the telco, and I fully expect them to call in the middle of the day and wonder why I'm not at home 24/7 to grant them access to my apartment. |
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I saw a reference to this in Michael Moorcock's article about writing a Doctor Who book and got it from Project Gutenberg. It is a hundred years old this year, having been published on early 1909.
Moorcock describes this as a "funny, futuristic" book, but it is really a parody of the invasion scare sub-genre. I have read a few other books in that genre - The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, When William Came by Saki, and a collection edited by I.F. Clarke.
Moorcock is, however, correct to describe it as funny, despite the incomprehensible contemporary cultural references and unpleasant racial stereotypes (which as far as I remember are largely absent from later Wodehouse). England is invaded by nine different armies, ranging from the Germans and Russians down to the forces of Monaco and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland (the latter driven to further derangement by a meeting with Irish Nationalist leader John Dillon). The occupied English grumble about the disruption to cricket and the theatre caused by the invaders, but this is resolved when the German and Russian commanders agree to appear as music-hall acts.
Clarence Chugwater, the somewhat nerdy Boy Scout who is Wodehouse's comic hero, manages to sow dissension between the German and Russian leaders by way of his day-job at an entertainment weekly. The two armies come close to wiping each other out, the Boy Scouts capture the survivors, and England is saved. Hurrah! (In the unlikely event that anyone feels I have spoiled the ending for them, I would point out that all is revealed in the very first chapter.)
This is not a good starting place for reading Wodehouse's works. (Indeed, it wasn't even a very good starting place foir writing Wodehouse's works.) But it is an interesting intersection of the fringes of the sf genre with his rather different genius when both were at an early stage of development.
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http://www.snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/hotline.asp Clueless cooks in the process of committing Thanksgiving mayhem call turkey hotlines. |
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