hell
By anders pearson 31 Aug 2001
my favorite thing about yourgoingtohell.com (although there’s plenty to love ;) is that the domain name is grammatically incorrect. sadly, someone appears to have let youregoingtohell.com’s registration lapse.
shu + liz
By anders pearson 30 Aug 2001
i finally got around to finishing the roll of film in my camera and developed pictures of Shu and Liz Ware’s wedding (at which tuck and i were “thugs”. jP was a thug too but he’s not in that picture because he took it).
<p>so, if you know Shu or Liz or just like looking at random pictures of other people’s weddings on the beach in deleware, <a href="images/shu/">look no further</a>.</p> 10<sup>3</sup>
By anders pearson 30 Aug 2001
this is the 1000th post on thraxil since last summer when i accidently hosed the old database and had to start over.
<p>i’d just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed for making this such an excellent place to waste time. keep up the good work.</p>
<p>once i get my cable modem installed on saturday, i should be back to contributing a little more frequently.</p> medley
By anders pearson 30 Aug 2001
an interesting mix of sounds coming through my window this afternoon: steel drums, opera singing and power tools.
<p>kind of pleasant actually.</p> home
By anders pearson 29 Aug 2001
this weekend, i moved into my new apartment. a nice one-bedroom on amsterdam ave. between 106th and 107th st. lani drove up from DC to help me move my stuff (have i mentioned lately that lani kicks ass?).
<p>this is the first time in my entire life that i actually have my <em>own</em> kitchen and bathroom. until now, i’ve always lived with other people and had to share my space. no one leaving the sink full of dirty dishes, eating all my eggs, or using all soap on me. it is heaven.</p> "yields falsehood when quoted" yields falsehood when quoted
By anders pearson 15 Aug 2001
it took me a few years to get around to it and a few weeks to actually get through it, but i finally read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
<p>it is definately one of the best books i’ve read in the last few years. it deals with the nature of self-awareness. as the author says in the preface: </p>
<p><p class="quote">“In a word, <span class="caps">GEB</span> is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle.”</p>
<p>his theories revolve around a concept of “strange loops” or “tangled hierarchies” which is not easily explained. in a roundabout attempt to make this evasive concept clear, <span class="caps">GEB</span> covers</p>
<p><p class="quote">fugues and canons, logic and truth, geometry, recursion, syntactic structures, the nature of meaning, Zen Buddhism, paradoxes, brain and mind, reductionism and holism, and colonies, concepts and mental representations, translation, computers and their languages, <span class="caps">DNA</span>, proteins, the genetic code, artificial intelligence, creativity, consciousness and free will.</p>
<p>the book is highly recommended if you have a passing interest in any of the above. furthermore, it serves as one of the most clearly written books on the mathematical underpinnings of computer science that i’ve ever read. it hits most of the important material and does it in a way that is accessible to people without a technical or math background. eg, although it doesn’t name it as such, it offers an amazingly lucid and elegant explanation of <a href="http://www.math.sc.edu/~sumner/numbertheory/induction/Induction.html">proof </a> by induction.<br />since <span class=”caps”>GEB</span> was written in 1979, it more or less predated the discovery (or at least popularization) of fractals and chaos theory. since the focus of the book is self-referential systems, i’d really be interested in seeing how, if it were re-written today, chaos theory would be integrated into it. </p>
<p>anyway, if you haven’t read it yet, go read it.</p> configurable security policies
By anders pearson 15 Aug 2001
god, i love mozilla.
<p>here’s a document describing how to <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/configPolicy.html">block all the annoying things that websites can do</a>. popup windows, resizing the browser, changing the status bar, etc. and the best part is that it can be done on a site by site basis. so you can block the annoying javascript on one site without having to turn javascript off globally.</p> do not call
By anders pearson 13 Aug 2001
it doesn’t appear to be working at the moment, but the state of new york has set up a do not call registry which makes it illegal for telemarketers to call you. hopefully, other states and countries can set up something similar and enough people will find out about it and sign up that telemarketing will just go away.
<p>sure would be nice if we could do something similar with spam…</p> transgenic pig excretions
By anders pearson 07 Aug 2001
this one ought to pose a nice quandary for the environmentalists: pigs are being genetically engineered to pollute less. is genetic engineering of food more or less evil than polluting the lakes?
<p>of course, people could just stop eating pigs…</p> they want to believe
By anders pearson 07 Aug 2001
one of the most annoying shows on TV lately is “Crossing Over” with John Edward on the Sci-fi channel. i really don’t understand why it’s so popular. are people really willing to believe anything they see on tv? apparently so.
<p>here’s an <a href="http://www.skeptic.com/newsworthy13.html">excellent article</a> explaining his technique.</p>