By
anders pearson
28 Jan 2002
taking a class on cryptography this semester at columbia since one of the benefits of my job is that i can take one class a semester for free. looks like a fun class. lots of number theory. all around a good excuse to spend a lot of money on textbooks.
<p>at the last lecture, the professor was going over modular exponentiation, which is an algorithm for doing things like 1,456,765<small><sup>3,567,234</sup></small> mod 67 really quickly without having to actually calculate the intermediate step of 1,456,765<small><sup>3,567,234</sup></small>, which would be way too large for any computer to handle. i’ve been over it a few times before, once for my algorithms class at bates and again for discrete math at columbia but i felt like i haven’t actually <em>done</em> it in long enough that i’m rusty. since it’s so important to cryptography, i figured i should brush up on it. so i do a search on the web and find… <a href="http://a-nders.dhs.org/code/expmod.html">my own code</a> for doing it in javascript that i wrote as part of a homework assignment for my algorithms class. i actually played with it for a couple minutes and clicked on the broken “view-source” link before i noticed that it was my own work.</p>
<p>i guess it’s true that long-term memory is the second thing to go…</p>
By
anders pearson
28 Jan 2002
our office has been overrun with the MyParty email worm. as i sit at my linux box looking at all the ascii garbage that is harmless in kmail but Outlook inexplicably treats as executable code, i’m left with the same questions that i ask every time one of these stupid things comes out:
<p>1) why do people still use Outlook?</p>
<p>2) why do people on windows/mac not at least use anti-virus software that is updated daily?</p>
<p>3) why doesn’t microsoft fix Outlook already?</p>
<p>after watching this happen over and over again (and getting countless Word documents that should have been plain-text emails), my boss and i are both strong advocates of banning Outlook in the office. we don’t think we can do it though because too many people are attached to the stupid thing.</p>
By
jp
28 Jan 2002
thanks to the wonders of modern science and the cultural mecca that is new hampshire, I was able to see two somewhat polarized events on the same day: the Thunder Nationals monster truck rally in Manch-Vegas, and Busta Rhymes, with surprise guest Naughty by Nature.
<p>the former, I’ll have to admit, was somewhat disappointing. having never been to a monster truckathon, and only having been promised that on <span class="caps">SUNDAY</span> <span class="caps">SUNDAY</span> <span class="caps">SUNDAY</span> I’d only need the edge of the seat they sold me for twelve american dollars, I found myself somewhat hunched back, using every last penny of my seat with my 12$ ass. the arena was kinda small, so they basically had one tiny heap of cars in the middle that the kept smishing. the one truck that was supposed to shoot dual 30-foot flame gysers out of it’s bed broke down in the first 15 minutes. and no grave digger or nuthin. Neema did get a babydoll grave digger tee, which is cute by virtue of being somewhat completely outta place. in any case, it was a nice excuse to take a drive and knock back a lot of cheap beer at lunchtime. </p>
<p>the latter, Mr. Rhymes and co, did not let me down. aside from having enough high schoolers to effectively make the median age about 16, and drawing mostly an <span class="caps">MTV</span> crowd (“you know, he sings that song with the video?”) he was working hard to get a buncha stix-dwellers up, on their feet and moving. very entertaining on the stage. and where the hell he dug up Naughty by Nature, I have no idea. another entertainment professional at any rate. </p>
<p>now, if my ears would just stop ringing.</p>
By
jerfunfin
26 Jan 2002
Most here may remember the story of my marksmanship with a rubberband, resulting in fly innards being scattered across Anders keyboard. (By the way, his home row still reads A N D E R S J K L ;’)
<p>With spring approaching, and insects waking from their winter respite, I recently purchased two high powered <a href=" http://www.blowgunsnw.com/rocket.htm">slingshots</a>. </p>
<p>I am anxious for the first fly to cross my path, or pigeon (aka Rat w/ wings) for that matter.</p>
<p>Why grow up when the toys keep getting better and better!</p>
By
sarah
25 Jan 2002
Cat Bite
<p>The tiny kitten black and white upon my window sill did climb.</p>
<p>Mewing most pathetically and crying all the time.</p>
<p>My heart opened up to her and I held her warm and close</p>
<p>she looked at me with bitterness, eyes dark and morose.</p>
<p>I sang songs in my broken voice to share with her my love</p>
<p>with cooing verse, and nuzzling her, my little turtle-dove.</p>
<p>When I thought she accepted me, I relaxed a bit my grip</p>
<p>she batted fingers play fully, and I let her take a nip.</p>
<p>The little bitch, she hissed at me and then her teeth struck home</p>
<p>biting down with all her might, piercing finger down to bone.</p>
<p>I though to smash her brains to bits against the marble floor</p>
<p>then grab the fucking sodden mass and hurl it from the door.</p>
<p>But still my heart when out to her, the sickly little kitty</p>
<p>her life had been a misery, of terror without pity.</p>
<p>I did what I was wont to do, this waif of dark delight</p>
<p>and brought her close up to my lips that dark and stormy night, </p>
<p>and gave her what she gave to me, a bite down to the bone…</p>
<p>[needs a conclusion… for when I get up.]</p>
By
tuck
24 Jan 2002
- Most of the first movie (Warriors of Virtue) was shot in China for various reasons. Thats why this crew was here for the sequel. Certain parts had to be filmed in the same locations.
<p>-I was on a set for 9.5 hours today. That sucked. I was fed, however.</p>
<p>-The set looked lame. A cave with lit torches, water, large tusks surrounding some sort of alter, and many prison cells. The makeup work on the prisoners was cool though. Nice long beards and flakey leper-looking faces. The smoke from the torches was definitely real as it smelled like my basement when the oil burner needs a new filter. Nice effect really. I always thought my basement smelled kind of cavey.</p>
<p><del>In my scene, after standing around with some other prisoners while looking angry but too frightened to do anything (as ordered by the director) I got to speak directly to the evil, enemy boss of the film. His name was Dogon. Actually, I was the only prisoner who got to speak to him</del> or speak at all for that matter. It was kind of strange here because suddenly, after standing in a head-lowered way and listening to the main character and the main bad guy talk to each other for a while, take after take, all eyes and film were suddenly on me as I spoke. Thats just weird. Standing for so long just acting, being recorded visually but along with 4 other captives, then suddenly speaking which draws everyones attention right to you, is quite a little rush. Theres lots of money in each take so if you mess up, it sucks for the director. Things need to be reset, so it also sucks for the crew. And all the other actors need to start all over again which sucks for them. It created quite a surprisingly intense focus on my part. I like those urgent type moments. During each take I was worried that the lack of air coming through the vocal chords for so long would cause some sort of embarrassing squeak or gargle when I first began to speak, which would be just perfect with all the focus on me there. But there was no trouble.</p>
<p>-And now time for a big gripe:</p>
I was <span class="caps">SUPPOSED</span> TO <span class="caps">DIE</span>. Which is what I was most excited about. A death scene. Me. I can die well. Dogon was to kill me after I made him angry, but…
<p>-the scene was cut before I even had a chance to wow them with my marginally practiced guttural gargles of blood, hack, hock and circumstance. The director decided to keep me alive. Ah well.</p>
<p><del>So no dying, but I got to say more lines and Im shown alot doing creepy things with my eyes. Really close up shots of me too. Youll see. The camera was on a set of tracks and during one take it rolled along all of us captives and stopped at the end, focusing on one of the stars of the movie. After doing a bunch of takes, the director moved me to stand right next to this person, putting me in the shot for a long dialogue. I was supposed to react facially to the evil words of the evil guy and the sad words of little star girl but also be really subtle and of course genuine</del> not overly dramatic. So I did. React I mean.</p>
<p><del>The director loved it. You can ask him if you have the connections. He came right over after the first take and after criticizing the angle, there being too much light, and Dogons tone being too flat, he said Tucker that was fantastic</del> can you do that exact same thing again… same words, same pause and everything? So I did. </p>
<p>-Then he moved me into some other shots. </p>
<p>-Afterwards, while people were resting around the cave, he thanked me again and reiterated that I did a fantastic job and that I should act. I walked up on the set one last time and looked around. </p>
<p>-Then I asked if I could watch the takes. He waived me up behind the fancy monitor-film-computer-thing. While watching the takes, we agreed that I looked truly, unquestionably, invariably evil wearing a hood and sporting quite the satanic tuft of chin hair. He said he should have cast me as one of Dogons minions instead of flying the professional actors from the US to play the parts. I agreed. We shook hands again. I was then asked for my number by a couple Chinese movie dudes. And then the Chinese casting agent who was one of the guys who had originally recruited me from school, gave me 3 times as much money as he gave any of the other blokes they hired for the day which came to about $100 US. He clamped down on my hand, patted me on the back and with a huge smile said hed call me the next day (which is tomorrow.) </p>
<p>-There is some real, nervous excitement when a director says: Tucker, that was fantastic, really. You should act! I mean, a director saying the words You should act, and being genuine about it, saying it in front of everyone on the set… you want, or at least you think you want, suddenly, to be an actor. I realize that all this probably means nothing and that if I really was good, it was only in comparison to the actors in this movie, who are not particularly special, I dont think. But for the rest of tonight at least, Im basking in my debut success. I could play evil for $100/day for a while. No prob.</p>
<p>-Also, it came very easy for me to play evil. That probably aided in my successes today. I wasnt really supposed to be an evil captive, but it just ended up that way and it looked neato enough that it worked.</p>
<p>-The lame-looking set actually looked great on the monitor. Everything was darkened and smoothed and just looked very hollywoodesque. I encountered the magic of film. It really is neat what they can do. I mean the set looked really MST3K-ish in real life. Really college play-ish, BlackBox Theater-ish, but on screen it was quite nifty if not convincing.</p>
<p>-So the movie will probably not be that good. I didnt see the first one and if any of you readers have, let me know exactly how bad it was for my curiositys sake. But regardless of the films potential or lack thereof… it was fun. I actually enjoyed this day. </p>
<p>The day I was an actor in a real movie. </p>
<p>The end.</p>
By
tuck
24 Jan 2002
-About 8 weeks ago some people came to watch the team training.
<p>-After class they grabbed 3 of us and took our pictures.</p>
<p>-A week later I was called and asked to go to Beijing Film Productions.</p>
<p>-3 days later I was there, sitting at a mahogany table in front of an American film director and his writers and crew, interviewing for a role. Would have been nice if they told me <span class="caps">BEFORE</span> <span class="caps">HAND</span> why I was going there. But of course, that is not the Chinese way. Also, Im not sure what else they would have had me go there for, but at the time, going to interview to be in a movie just never crossed my mind for some reason.</p>
<p>-I learned quickly that they needed to cast a couple recent-addition-to-the-script roles.</p>
<p>-The director seemed like an ok guy. </p>
<p>-They had me read some lines. I did the best I could considering I didnt know it was a casting interview before I went. I wasnt nervous; my last job in America nerve-bombed me for life. But I was really unprepared. Ive never even been in a play.</p>
<p>-2 weeks later, after thinking I probably sucked, they called me back.</p>
<p>-4 days later I was back in the board room reading more lines, being filmed, and being told I have a really interesting look about [me].</p>
<p>-2 days later they called. A small script was dropped off for me.</p>
<p>-26 days later was today, my debut as a film actor. </p>
<p>-The movie is probably going to suck, but Im in it, and I speak in it, and I scowl in it, so therefore those who know me are obligated to watch it for the 5 minutes of me-ness. </p>
<p>-Its the sequel to a movie I have never seen called Warriors of Virtue (1997). <span class="caps">MGM</span> pictures. Soundtrack available. It was in theaters.</p>
<p>-The day is detailed in <span class="caps">TTJ</span> (thraxil tuck journal)</p>
By
anders pearson
23 Jan 2002
since i finally got the package my mom mailed with my cookbooks, i decided to try out a recipe. tonight for dinner i made grilled mushrooms. basically just a few mushrooms marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, basil, and pepper and then broiled.
<p>it came out absolutely delicious. </p>
<p>unfortunately, i realized the hard way that i probably should have looked in the oven before i turned the broiler on. since i’d never even so much as opened the oven door since moving into my apartment, i had failed to notice that the previous occupants had kindly left me a backing pan complete with about half an inch of burned on… stuff… that made for a nice apartment full of smoke soon after i started broiling my mushrooms.</p>
<p>in other news, i apparently don’t have any smoke detectors in my apartment…</p>
By
anders pearson
23 Jan 2002
went to a lecture last night that Damian Conway gave to the NYC perlmongers about “Life, the Universe, and Everything.”
<p>Damian has a reputation as the “mad scientist” of the perl community, attempting (often successfully) things that no one else would ever even consider like <a href="http://cpan.valueclick.com/authors/id/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana-Perligata-0.01.readme">programming perl in latin</a> or incorporating non-deterministic <a href="http://cpan.valueclick.com/authors/id/DCONWAY/Quantum-Superpositions-1.02.readme">Quantum Superpositioning</a> into the language. but it’s really difficult to understand just how random and disturbed his mind is until you’ve seen him speak. the lecture he gave last night was kind of like a fever dream version of Gödel Escher Bach.</p>
<p>he started the talk by mentioning that he is not related to that other Conway, the cambridge mathematician who invented the <a href="http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/">Game of Life</a>. then he started talking about the <span class="caps">GOF</span> for a while because he was fascinated with the crazy things people did with it. eg, even though Conway (the mathematician) mathematically proved that the <span class="caps">GOF</span> was <a href="http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Turing-complete">turing complete</a>, you’d think that no one would be crazy enough to actually <em>implement</em> a turing machine using it. of course <a href="http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/tm.htm">you’d be wrong</a>. and of course Damian had to make his own contribution. so he wrote a perl module called <span class="caps">DFA</span>::Cellular to make it easy to play with any kind of cellular automata in perl. CA’s work by iteratively applying a set of rules to each cell in a grid and generating the output based on that. a problem often arises when two or more rules apply to a cell; the usual solution is to just take the first one that applied and call that good. Damian decided to instead use his Quantum Superposition code on it to allow the cells to exists in multiple states at once. an interesting idea but not earth-shattering.</p>
<p>then he started talking about languages and brought up the fact that the <a href="http://www.kli.org/">klingon language</a> had been designed to use a particularly uncommon word order, which coincidently is very similar to perl’s syntax. the obvious course of action for Damian after discovering this was to write a module similar to his Latin one that would let you write perl in klingon. Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun was born (well, it’s being checked over by the klingon language institute for correctness, but it will be released soon). </p>
<p>then he changes the topic entirely yet again and starts talking about demonology)including some humorously photoshopped pictures of various perl luminaries) and James Clerk Maxwell’s <a href="http://cougar.slvhs.slv.k12.ca.us/~pboomer/physicslectures/maxwell.html">demon</a>. since he’d been playing with cellular automata, he decided that it would be fun to simulate maxwell’s demon in perl which he was able to do pretty quickly with the code he’d written incorporating the quantum superpositioning. hard to explain without demonstrating but he came up with a pretty good demonstration of why maxwell’s demon isn’t as contradictory as maxwell thought it was (this was also proved a while back but in a somewhat un-intuitive manner). Damian’s demonstration basically showed that with gas densities anything like normal, even a tiny difference in density between the two chambers makes it extremely difficult to let a particle from the low-density side through without letting one or more of the particles from the high-density side through at the same time.</p>
<p>then, to tie everything together, he took the cellular automata and quantum superposition based simulation of maxwell’s demon and rewrote it in klingon.</p>
<p>i should point out that Damian is really a very good lecturer; he’s funny, articulate, and manages to work it so everything makes a sick kind of sense.</p>
<p>there were a few other people there who are active in the design and implementation of perl 6 along with Damian and they spent an hour or so after the talk answering questions about and explaining the next version of the language which promises to be either salvation for programmers or a catastrophe of biblical proportions. lots of fun things like a robust and fast threading model, byte-code compatability with java, python, ruby and other scripting languages, a cleaner object model, curried functions, a <span class="caps">DWIM</span> (do what i mean) comparison operator, and countless other changes to the syntax are all in the works.</p>
By
Mark Boudreau
21 Jan 2002
I saw the Royal Tenenbaums yesterday, and I must say that Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson created a wonderful film. Wes Anderson has the ability to create a world in his films that seems a lot like ours, but it is trapped in some time which is a mix of now and a previous decade. In the Royal Tenenbaums that decade is the 70’s, as opposed to the 60’s motif of Rushmore. It gives the film a quirkiness that keeps you chuckling and enough details to keep your eyes dancing around the screen looking for past treasures. The performances were as delightful as the setting. The story seemed more of a vehicle for the characters more than anything else. And these characters were worth having such a forum. I definitely look forward to seeing it again.