Kuro5hin links to a 19th Century Guide to Dishonest Argument.#

A man may be objectively in the right, and nevertheless in the eyes of bystanders, and sometimes in his own, he may come off worst. For example, I may advance a proof of some assertion, and my adversary may refute the proof, and thus appear to have refuted the assertion, for which there may, nevertheless, be other proofs. In this case, of course, my adversary and I change places: he comes off best, although, as a matter of fact, he is in the wrong.

... [I]n a dialectical contest we must put objective truth aside, or, rather, we must regard it as an accidental circumstance, and look only to the defence of our own position and the refutation of our opponent's.

Razib at Gene Expression points out that Australia is the "gayest" country in the world...#

A few points....

Generally of British Isles stock (kind of sound gay to start with)

Disproportionately descended from inmates (male mostly)

Sometimes work in the outback with nothing in a 100 mile radius but dingos and your "comrades"

Most mammals in Oz are weird, why shouldn't the people turn a bit queer after a few generations?

Had an Ozzie roommate that liked to "do it" with ugly chicks once-guys are just the next step....

Peter Lindberg wonders if the Dewey Decimal Classification system would be useful for cataloguing software? Later he adds:#

in software systems, there are organizing principles specific (more or less) to the sets of problems addressed by them. If these systems are well designed, every potential addition should have its obvious place.

By this I do not mean that every potential addition should be anticipated, but that the design should be evolved in a way such that it's perfect at every stage, liquid, changeable.

When I thought about this, I found it interesting to consider the differences between the organizing principles of individual systems and those of a reuse library.

Jason Kottke pulls a neat excerpt from an article about UK pirate radio...#

There is a studio mobile too. It vibrates every few seconds like a faulty alarm clock, as listeners call and text. Scrolling through its inbox, I notice scores of "missed calls". Big N explains that this is how pirates gauge a record's popularity. If listeners like a tune, they call in and then ring off, so the studio mobile registers a "missed call". This costs callers nothing. If Xtreme receives over 20 missed calls from different numbers before a track ends, the DJs play it again. This is why teenagers listen to pirate radio: it's interactive in ways legal stations can't match. Some tune in on their mobiles - on the bus, in the high street, even at school.

Ryan McGee needs to write more funny stories about college and womun.#

I lived with nine guys in college. 9 guys. Say it like the principal in "Ferris Bueller". Anyways, one of them was a heavyweight wrestler. Dude carried kegs up stairs on his shoulder. Just an incredibly strong guy. Anyways, one day, he comes up to our common room, looking like his mother had been kidnapped by the SLA. "Guys, guys! You gotta come here this! Jen just called!" Now, Jen was the girl he has crushed on since freshman year. Even though he was married. Yes, married, but that's a whole other story. So we bolt (ok, trudge) down to his bedroom. He's already there, pacing. "OK, guys, I called Jen last night, right? OK, and today she called back and left me a message. You gotta tell me what this means. OK?" We just wanted to get back to Bo Jackson's epic game in Super Techmo Bowl, so we nodded. "OK, guys, tell me what you think." And he hits the machine. "Hi, Rob, it's Jen. Guess you're not there, so call me back." BEEP. He looks at us with an ever-growing crazy look in his eyes. "What does it all MEAN?"

We walked silently out of the room. Needless to say, we guys are often as confused as you girls.

Philip Greenspun so funny, ha ha.#

My friend Curtis, an old-time Silicon Valley monster C hacker, AIMed me to say that he'd seen the Slashdot article:

"My problem with Java is that it makes hard things hard, and easy things hard. The amount of hassle doesn't scale with the complexity of the problem. Whereas with PHP you can write "Hello World" without having to read a 200-page book. Java is a train wreck with dozens of classes with slightly different methods that do similar things. On the other hand, it kills me that the PHP database interface is so bad. Actually PHP just kills me anyway...why they had to invent a new language, I'll never know."

I pointed out to Curtis that the latest Technology Review, MIT's alumni rag, picked the developer of PHP as one of its "100 Bold Young Innovators You Need to Know":

"Rasmus Lerdorf has learned five languages while living around the world. But it's the language he invented that has had global impact. In 1995, without any formal programming training, Lerdorf developed a server language to help him set up Web sites. ... He named the language PHP, for PHP hypertext preprocessor."

Curtis's response to Tech Review? "People mistake creation for innovation".

Gothamist reports on a Quentin Tarantino interview...#

Quentin Tarantino eloquently rages on about computer-generated effects in movies to Empire: "You know, my guys are all real. There's no computer fucking around. I'm sick to death of all that shit. This is old school with fucking cameras. If I'd wanted all that computer game bullshit, I'd have gone home and stuck my dick in my Nintendo."

The Yeti writes about the common thread of arguments...#

There is a root to every argument - a need for self-expression that gives us our sense of worth. The polarization occurs when someone else threatens that sense of self-worth.

Nova Spivack points out the completion of a rare Buddhist endurance ritual...#

A Buddhist priest dubbed the "marathon monk" has completed an ancient running ritual in the remote Japanese mountains that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe, wearing only a flowing white robe and flimsy straw sandals.