Thursday  25 Feb 2010           5 comments

Yet another guessing game. This quote

We are so damned biased, even those of us who spend all our lives attempting not to be biased. Just the mere fact that when we like the taste of something, we tend to eat it more than we should.

is from which of the following:

• an author of computer programs that compose music
• the discoverer of a new mathematical symmetry group
• a lawyer
• an architect

?

As usual, please try to guess before searching the web.

Saturday  20 Feb 2010           comment?

A previous owner of my house evidently thought it would be too hot without shade. I have no other explanation for why dense, fast-growing trees are planted right next to the house.

The contractor who'd built the house told me I ought to take the trees out, lest they damage the house's foundation. I compromised: I took out one tree (of a type known for having obstreporous roots) right away and took my chances with the rest.

Two of the remaining trees recently commenced to die, which led me to read up about the species (Cupressocyparis leylandii). They have a law named after them! Part VIII of the UK's Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, nicknamed the leylandii law, was introduced after numerous confrontations over tall hedges. Llandis Burdon of Wales was shot dead in 2001 "after an alleged dispute over a leylandii hedge".

"People are misusing it," said David Williams of the Wales garden where the species was first hybridized. "It's the same with aeroplanes or guns or anything--it's not the thing itself, it's what we use it for." That is to say, cypresses don't block light, people do.

But back to my trees. Rather than taking them out when I moved in, I continued irrigating them for twelve years so they'd be bigger and thus even more work to take out when they finally took ill, as Cupressocyparis specimens tend to do in hot-summer climates.

I now have two fewer trees. The larger one was about eight meters tall and made a cool sound when it fell. I saved a few pieces for lumber, gave a neighbor a bunch of firewood, and carted the rest away today.

If I were landscaping this place from scratch, I'd only plant stuff that didn't need irrigation.

Sunday  14 Feb 2010           1 comment

Of all the buildings I've lived in over the years, only one (to my knowledge) is no more: 135 West 22 St. in Manhattan, torn down (along with a few adjacent buildings) a couple years ago and replaced by a taller building.

In a dream a couple nights ago, I was back in the old building and a friend was visiting. From our conversation:

Tommy:	The building we're in isn't here any more.
friend:	That's a very strange sentence.
Tommy:	It was gone last time I looked. If we leave, it won't be here when we get back.

Sunday  07 Feb 2010           1 comment

Saudi Arabia has refused to accredit one Mr. Akbar Zeb, who Pakistan had proposed as ambassador. From the Jerusalem Post:

A relatively common Muslim name, Akbar means 'biggest' or 'greatest' in Arabic. While Zeb is a common Urdu name, in Arabic it is a slang reference to the male genitals and not used in polite conversation.

Faced with an uncomfortable conundrum, it seems the unfortunate diplomat's Arab hosts felt that local references to 'His Excellency Biggest Dick' would not go over well.

According to the Arab Times^*, the United Arab Emirates refused to accredit Mr Zeb as ambassador. Undeterred, Pakistan then tried to send Mr Zeb to neighboring Bahrain instead, where the emissary was rejected again. Then, most recently, Pakistan tried sending Mr Zeb to Saudi Arabia, only to be rebuffed a third time.

None of the Gulf States have made a statement as to why Mr Zeb was refused accreditation.

* see this Google translation of the Arab Times article.

Saturday  06 Feb 2010           2 comments

I hear there's a somewhat popular movie out in 3-D.

Polarized 3-D projection goes way back. A 3-D craze in the 1950s didn't last, kind of like how quadrophonic records flopped in the 1970s.

3-D used to require two projectors, which was a pain. Any time a print lost a frame due to damage in splicing or handling, the same change would have to be made to the other print to keep the two in sync. Current-day 3-D is more practical, and theaters like how audiences have been willing to pay a premium to see it.

3-D television is coming too, I hear. And just as quad stereos had ways of deriving four signals from two-channel recordings, televisions will attempt to invent 3-D images from 2-D sources. Call me a curmudgeon, but I can't imagine that'll look very good.

I have no idea how common 3-D will get to be, but I don't think it'd be going out on a limb to predict that 2-D movies will still be made for a long time to come.

As far as innovative use of technology goes, I'm partial to Stanley Kubrick's having filmed by candlelight with an f/0.7 lens that had originally been made for use in outer space.

Thursday  04 Feb 2010           9 comments

Although I generally don't care for time-travel fantasies, I have wondered what it would be like if I could have a conversation with a younger me. Would the young me pay attention to what his-self-in-the-future had to say? Could my youthful foolishness have been lessened if I'd gotten advice from a source that I would have taken seriously? My guess: not much.

A while back, I wrote about an online buddy who was good at guessing people's ages from a couple lines of their communication. The fact that that's so possible is kind of scary.

I invite readers to guess the age of the person who wrote the following blog excerpt. For the exercise to be worthwhile, it is a verbatim quote--which unfortunately makes cheating trivially easy. That is to say, please don't Google the text before guessing.

Frankly, the possibility of losing today had not really crossed my mind. The good news is that I haven’t lost a classical game since Dortmund in July and had nearly forgotten what it’s like. The bad news, it’s not a pleasant feeling.