tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34583402011-04-21T18:38:59.122-06:00Musings from Costa RicaDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comBlogger1851100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1096965884940878302004-10-05T02:15:00.000-06:002004-10-05T03:26:14.070-06:00

Some people, notably the lackwits at this site, are still going on as if Prof. David Hailey's risible hack job on the Rather/Burkett/CBS memos hasn't been busted wide open by Kevin and Paul at Wizbang. But let's throw some formal logic at Hailey's hypothesis. From what I understand, he's played about with some sort of typewriter font in Photoshop and concluded that because (in his opinion) he

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1096654599037657492004-09-30T21:18:00.000-06:002004-10-04T01:17:54.650-06:00

John Derbyshire has another cute end-of-the-month maths puzzle. Here's how he puts it: Consider the powers of two: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128... Their right-most digits follow a simple repetitive pattern: 2, 4, 8, 6, 2, 4, 8, 6, 2, 4, 8, 6... What about their left-most digits, though? Here are the first 40-odd [actually, it's the first 149 - Ed.]. (Read right to left, line by line. I've just

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1096257952070608632004-09-26T21:44:00.000-06:002004-09-26T23:12:39.643-06:00

Nothing I can add on the Rathergate issue, so instead here's Sunday's recipe for basic meatballs: 200g finely ground minced beef 1/2 egg, beaten 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder 1/4 cup breadcrumbs 1/4 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp Worcester sauce 1/2 tsp Bovril or other beef extract 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 3 tbsp vegetable oil Mix all the ingredients, except the vegetable oil, in a bowl or

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095756604814214392004-09-21T02:44:00.000-06:002004-09-21T02:50:04.813-06:00

I'm a hardcore wonk when it comes to Memogate, but with the volume of material that Ardolino, Harrell, Allah, Ace, Hewitt, Powerline, Geraghty, Johnson et al. have been putting out I feel a bit Inside Baseball. I actually have a job and a social life, and those two bad boys are seriously cutting into the time I have to study the flood of data that is coming my way thanks to the blogosphere. It's

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095660726165909202004-09-20T01:08:00.000-06:002004-09-20T01:26:06.150-06:00

This just in: Woody Allen is not fond of Dubya. Who'd'a thunk it? But if ever a life could be described as islands of comedy against a background of tragedy, it sure ain't George Bush's. For that description, one merely needs to look at Allen's recent filmic output.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095652907342187422004-09-19T21:33:00.000-06:002004-09-20T02:00:46.806-06:00

There was some poor witless girl nattering on about the 'epistemology' of the forged memos (she was linked to in Jonathan Last's Weekly Standard article; looking up the link was almost more than I could bear). Dear little thing trotted out the meme that MS Word was designed to mimic 1970's typewriters. To anyone who has more than a nanogram of clue in their whole body, that fails the laugh test

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095393127886054152004-09-16T21:45:00.000-06:002004-09-16T21:52:10.136-06:00

Tradesports has long contracts on Bush winning the election at a 67.0/67.8 bid/ask spread tonight. Of course the final winner of the election will be whoever cracks a majority in the college, and sites like Election Projection have a much more detailed (nuanced?) analysis of the outcome, but a verdict like this from an efficent information aggregator does not bode well for Kerry.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095392595036931542004-09-16T21:36:00.000-06:002004-09-16T21:55:27.023-06:00

The InstaProf points to an excellent synoptic article about l'affaire Rather in The Scotsman. He makes a parenthetical remark about pyjamas although, bizarrely, he spells them as 'pajamas' [sic]. Even more oddly, he insists on using the curious young participle 'spelled' when of course he intended to write 'spelt'. Those crazy Americans and their neologisms.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095065678081826242004-09-13T02:50:00.000-06:002004-09-13T02:54:38.080-06:00

By the way, it is highly insulting to imply that I blog in my pyjamas. I live in a tropical country. On the rare occasions that I wear any clothing at all whilst blogging, it is almost invariably a loinskin. At this point I will typically be daubed with woad. To wear pyjamas whilst blogging is simply to invite an attack of prickly heat.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095061307919532472004-09-13T01:39:00.000-06:002004-09-15T00:56:38.810-06:00

A bit behind the times, but from the keyboard of the sainted Professor Bunyip, a post that encapsulates my feelings perfectly.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095059285077237822004-09-13T01:06:00.000-06:002004-09-13T01:08:05.076-06:00

Fifty days to go until the election. Has any challenging candidate ever pulled back from a deficit this big to win?

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095051623294478892004-09-12T22:54:00.000-06:002004-09-12T23:00:23.293-06:00

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Analogous: frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora (it is pointless to do with more that which can be done with less).

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1095045886497097092004-09-12T20:38:00.000-06:002004-09-12T23:01:14.336-06:00

There appears among non-technical people some confusion as to the significance of the fact that the font pitch in the purported memos is the same as Microsoft Times New Roman. This is an attempt to explain that significance: The fact that the letter spacing in the 'memos' matches Microsoft's Times New Roman is absolutely dispositive of the falsity of these documents. Not only could these

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1094973814371855612004-09-12T01:16:00.000-06:002004-09-12T01:23:34.370-06:00

Jeff Harrell at Shape of Days, who is proving to be pretty much the go-to guy for coverage of the technical aspect of the fake memos, has an interesting post. He says he's had people saying that the reason the memos look like they've been created in Microsoft Word is because Microsoft designed Word to adhere to orthodox typewriting standards. OK, sure. Ya frickin' morons. Microsoft Word did not

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1094846120164133932004-09-10T13:30:00.000-06:002004-09-10T13:57:25.950-06:00

In an exchange I had with Jeff Harrell of the excellent Shape of Days blog, we discussed how anyone could have ever thought that these memos were genuine. Anyone who, like Jeff and me, has had experience of the development of desktop publishing and word processing can spot them as fake a mile off. The thing that initially perplexed me was that the forgery was just such an amateurish job. This in

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1094833651261480922004-09-10T10:26:00.000-06:002004-09-10T13:56:22.456-06:00

I said this wouldn't be the Internet election. I was wrong.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1094028655324931392004-09-01T02:19:00.000-06:002004-09-09T22:14:49.706-06:00

John Derbyshire has a little maths problem at the tail of his August Diary in National Review Online. Here it is: Draw a circle of radius 1 unit (foot, meter, mile, whatever). Inscribe an equilateral triangle in the circle, the three corners all on the circle's circumference. Now inscribe a smaller circle in the triangle, its circumference just touching the sides of the triangle at their

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093937870453683972004-08-31T01:37:00.000-06:002004-08-31T02:10:46.053-06:00

Sorry for all the bad language. But sometimes it's apposite, y'know?

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093933004739894052004-08-30T23:55:00.000-06:002004-08-31T01:06:45.273-06:00

On a lighter note: here's what I had for supper tonight, with enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. It's my interpretation of a bunch of cookbook recipes: Chicken Tabouleh Salad 1 cup Bulgar wheat 2 cups water 1 large or 2 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts 1 cup chopped parsley 1 cup chopped cucumber 2 tsp finely chopped mint leaves 1/2 cup finely chopped spring onions 2 tbsp freshly

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093931516275926952004-08-30T23:18:00.000-06:002004-08-30T23:51:56.276-06:00

I suppose using Blogger is faster than mimeographing your own newsletter and handing it out to hoi polloi. Only fucking barely, mind you. So get your own website, you cry. Problem: to get a credit card that US companies will accept over the Internet via the bank into which my salary is paid requires a level of bullshit that frankly makes me want to kidnap senior bank executives and play with

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093927708849853712004-08-30T22:34:00.000-06:002004-08-31T01:35:47.330-06:00

I missed the John McCain speech at the RNC. I saw bits of it in highlight. I still think he's poison, but I admit his utility in attracting a segment of the electorate that otherwise would not vote Republican. Then there was Rudy. Rudy Giuliani. Oh. My. God. I think that was one of the best pieces of political theatre that I have seen in the past thirty years. It's not often I get teary-eyed

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093588795826139222004-08-27T00:25:00.000-06:002004-08-27T00:46:20.766-06:00

One John Perry Barlow (whose blog title is 'Conversations With My Friends', most of them imaginary, one assumes) has writen a truly bizarre post in which he threatens to disrupt the Republican Convention by, get this, guerilla dancing. As Dave Barry would say: I am not making this up. Further comment on this would be otiose, really. I am literally non-plussed as to how a purportedly rational

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093587084275444142004-08-26T23:57:00.000-06:002004-08-27T00:43:49.416-06:00

Big Media is in the hubris -> nemesis stage right now. God help them. It may not happen right away, but absent a miracle, their influence can only head in one direction: down. This isn't the Internet Election (that's 2008), but we're close. And I don't think either side has truly grasped the extent to which the disintermediating effects of the new technologies render their existing strategies

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093240284089107862004-08-22T23:47:00.000-06:002004-08-22T23:51:24.090-06:00

After reading this post and its subsequent comments on The Mudville Gazette (shortly to be blogrolled), I wish that I, as a non-US citizen, not domiciled in the US, could send some cash to help stop John 'disgusting traitorous scumbag' Kerry winning the election.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093225993118650162004-08-22T19:52:00.000-06:002004-08-23T10:40:03.413-06:00

The Kerry/SBVT fracas continues apace. From my perspective, this is hurting him badly. The allegations are widely known, despite the attempts of the mainstream media to suppress them, and they are starting to gain traction. Most of the Americans I know in Costa Rica are fairly die-hard Democrats (the letters page of the local English-language rag makes Mother Jones look like Frontpage Magazine),

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1093220873319708592004-08-22T18:23:00.000-06:002004-08-22T18:27:53.320-06:00

According to the USGS, it was a 4.0, just off the coast of Quepos. No injuries or damage. We're quite lucky here; our earthquakes seem to be small and frequent, which is obviously better than the other way round. There have been some big 'uns, but the largest in the six-odd years I've been here was a 5.4. It was quite exciting really. People pay good money at amusement parks for that kind of a

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092750940879628882004-08-17T07:54:00.000-06:002004-08-17T07:56:32.613-06:00

We just had a teeny little tremor, 7.45 am local time. Felt about a 4.0,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092625960124547832004-08-15T21:04:00.000-06:002004-08-15T21:12:40.123-06:00

Hot off the presses: according to The Sun, hardline UK Home Secretary David Blunkett has been having a three-year affair with Kimberly Fortier, the (married, one child) publisher of The Spectator.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092620102812688742004-08-15T18:49:00.000-06:002004-08-16T00:15:31.403-06:00

Fox News's website has a column entitled Tongue Tied, which reports on the latest PC inanities. Lead item is about this story, in which the Bishop of Hulme (near Manchester) wrote in his diocesan newsletter that the hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country was heretical and nationalist. It's a beautiful hymn, often sung at services of remembrance. It's usually set to the Jupiter Theme from The Planets by

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092615115269755322004-08-15T18:01:00.000-06:002004-08-15T18:11:55.270-06:00

Bloody Mary's are a thing of joy and beauty. But me, I prefer the variant known as a Bloody Maria, which uses tequila instead of vodka. Here's the recipe: In a cocktail shaker, combine 1/2 tsp celery salt 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground black pepper 1/2 tsp grated horseradish 2 tsp Tabasco 1 tsp Worcester Sauce juice of 1 lime 6 oz tequila (nothing too pricy - Joe Crow will do) 10 oz tomato juice

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092612348546076252004-08-15T16:53:00.000-06:002004-08-16T01:18:19.396-06:00

This is interesting. The IEEE 802.11 group is canvassing proposals for a new wireless LAN sub-standard, 801.11n, that would allow up to 540 megabits per second. That is very, very fast. The bandwidth allocated to 802.11 is in two chunks, one around the microwave oven frequency of 2.4GHz (UHF) and another up around the 5 GHz region (SHF J-band). The channels are only 20 MHz wide. Putting half a

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092604232996024702004-08-15T15:01:00.002-06:002004-08-15T17:28:01.646-06:00

It's raining so hard I can't even see the other side of the valley, 500m away. Every time there's a storm in the Caribbean we get the fallout a few days later. So I guess what we're seeing here is the side-effects of Charley. When Mitch rolled through Honduras and Nicaragua we got practically incessant rain for twelve days. A couple of Costa Ricans were killed in a landslide, but the toll in

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092600373625978772004-08-15T13:58:00.000-06:002004-08-15T17:53:05.620-06:00

A screwdriver is not just orange juice with a shot of vodka in it. At least, not if you do it right. Here's my Screwdriver de Luxe: Get a large (13-14oz) highball glass. Cut a wedge of orange and rub it round the rim. Lightly sugar the rim. In a cocktail shaker, mix a handful of ice cubes, three ounces of good orange vodka (Absolut Mandrin or Stoli Oranj are perfect), 1/2 oz of Cointreau, 1oz of

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092599415081131942004-08-15T13:48:00.000-06:002004-08-15T13:50:15.080-06:00

I appear to have been possessed by the spirit of Steven Den Beste.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092599240794278352004-08-15T12:39:00.000-06:002004-08-16T02:22:12.590-06:00

There's a superb, must-read article by Norman Podhoretz over at Commentary Magazine. He discusses the rise of modern Arab/Muslim terror in the post-WW2 era. He claims we are now fighting World War Four (number Three being the Cold War). He's right, but I'd like to go further. What we're fighting now is the ur-World War, World War Zero. And we've been fighting it for nearly 1,500 years. Our enemy

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092378432253963932004-08-13T00:18:00.000-06:002004-08-13T01:11:38.813-06:00

As the previous post demonstrates, I'm a bit like John Derbyshire. I love mathematics, but I'm not really very good at it. I'm a mathematician manqué. Don't get me wrong: I obtained a good degree in a highly mathematical subject from a very well-regarded university (2:1 Honours Physics, Imperial College, London, 1992), and a higher degree in Electronic Engineering (M.Sc., RF and Microwave Comms

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092376568625749092004-08-12T23:39:00.000-06:002004-08-13T00:02:35.943-06:00

I had a bit of fun last night coming up with descriptions of numbers, such as 'smallest fourth power [of integers] greater than unity', sixteen in other words. In mathematics these are known as 'exceptional numbers i.e. they have some property that is not shared with any other number. There's a nice little reductio ad absurdum proof that there's no smallest exceptional number: if there were, it

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092369754402742722004-08-12T21:59:00.000-06:002004-08-12T22:02:34.403-06:00

Boy, do I have some work to do to get this thing shipshape. For a start, I need to completely reconstruct my blogroll. Fortunately I hacked together a little PHP/FrontBase SQL thingy a year or so back in which I maintain my favourite blog links. 'Twil be but the work of a moment to adapt it to spit out HTML that I can paste into my template.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092367849267364152004-08-12T21:30:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:58:15.646-06:00

I'm testing Blogger's photo capability. This is a test of Blogger's interaction with a service called flickr. Seems to work pretty well. Anyway, this picture is a pretty good illustration of why I enjoy living in Costa Rica. It's a view across the Rio Torres valley towards the highway leading to Alajuela (one of Costa Rica's major towns). It was taken about twenty meters from my front door.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092366530404017752004-08-12T21:06:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:09:41.190-06:00

I posted this over at the excellent Tim Blair's and am shamelessly recycling it here: Never mind what Lurch was doing in his dinghy in the Mekong in 1968. The question that the Leftist media have failed to ask is, where was John Edwards? Huh? Huh? Was he in the shit? Was he in the 'Nam, hunting Charlie? Nuh-uh. My sources say he was hiding out in the Piedmont in South Carolina, dodging the draft

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092364870432595632004-08-12T20:36:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:11:31.800-06:00

If Stephen Green can post cocktail recipes then so can I. This is a much cheaper long drink version of God's Own Cocktail, the Kir Royale: 3 oz crème de Cassis 3 oz good Vodka (Stoli Blue for me) large highball, sugared rim, three or four large ice cubes Fill to top with tonic Garnish with a couple of fresh Morello cherries if you want to impress a date I am swigging one right now, and all is

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092363305208803212004-08-12T20:12:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:10:32.510-06:00

Something that just drives me nuts: those 'the more you know' segments that NBC incessantly runs. "Hey, parents, don't teach your kids to be racists!" "Make sure you know what Internet sites they're visiting!" Patronising bunch of wankers.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092361980479167622004-08-12T19:48:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:10:11.526-06:00

I just caught the Varsity segment with Michelle Malkin on Dennis Miller's show. The three panellists were all fairly sensible, although Peter Roff made a bit of an ass of himself by criticising Michelle Malkin's book when he clearly hadn't read it. The real eye-opener, however, was that Michelle is even more beautiful than I had imagined. Simply stunning. Why does the right get all the hotties

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092352166357706312004-08-12T17:08:00.000-06:002004-08-12T23:32:01.743-06:00

Did I really drink 17 beers last night? Yeppers. Did I feel dreadful this morning? Nope. Leapt out of bed as if rocket-propelled.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092289793136701602004-08-11T23:58:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:12:47.790-06:00

Third Fermat prime.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092289606841878622004-08-11T23:45:00.000-06:002004-08-12T21:13:05.803-06:00

Smallest fourth power greater than unity.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092289302787748622004-08-11T23:40:00.000-06:002004-08-11T23:41:42.786-06:00

Um. Now it's the smallest number that is the product of two distinct odd primes.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092287670268214662004-08-11T22:58:00.000-06:002004-08-11T23:15:48.900-06:00

No more tonight? As if! Anyway, it transpires that turning my recalcitrant fridge to nine was sufficent to make sorbet out of my collection of Nipponese beers. No matter. They remain abundantly tasty even if turned into Slushies. Anything substantive? Perhaps. Check this: I'm a scientist, of sorts, so I know that anecdotal evidence is highly suspect. But I live in a country that prides itself

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092286477112648392004-08-11T22:52:00.000-06:002004-08-11T22:54:37.113-06:00

Um, yeah, by the way, that was all me down below. A bit purple, I know, but the paeans for the top dogs were well meant, and I think they mostly hold up two years on.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092285586868360032004-08-11T22:34:00.000-06:002004-08-11T22:41:43.126-06:00

Blogger's changed quite a bit since I abandoned it some time ago. It's a lot better, that's for sure. Anyway, no more tonight. I drank a number of beers which is the smallest non-square-free number with distinct prime factors.* *Twelve

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092285029377310912004-08-11T22:29:00.000-06:002004-08-11T22:30:29.376-06:00

Jeez, it works.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092284933501297362004-08-11T22:28:00.000-06:002004-08-11T22:28:53.500-06:00

Testing 123 testing

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-1092284824950951292004-08-11T22:25:00.000-06:002004-08-11T22:27:04.950-06:00

I have a hankering to fire this bad boy up again. I've been a commentor on any number of blogs for eighteen months now, and perhaps, just perhaps, I need my own blog.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-927028462003-04-16T01:33:00.000-06:002003-04-16T01:33:49.716-06:00

Having said that, it's gonna be a while before I do anything non-lame, so bear with me. Think burn-victim rejoining your softball team - there's a lot of scar tissue to be flexed, and a bunch of Hallmark representatives to fight off.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-927027122003-04-16T01:28:00.000-06:002003-04-16T01:28:26.140-06:00

You know what? I'm fed up with being the commenter on the cool posts that the big boys throw out there. Fuck that. I'm back in town. This blog is BACK.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818614832002-09-20T01:36:00.000-06:002002-09-20T02:18:05.000-06:00

Whoops. Looks like I spoke too soon. Work commitments just up and bit me in the ass. This blog is going on furlough until further notice. The Saddam Dead Pool continues, however!

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818475872002-09-19T18:48:00.000-06:002002-09-19T18:48:03.453-06:00

This bitch has got to go. What the hell do the Germans think they are playing at? If Schröder wins the election, then the US should immediately start redeploying V Corps (that's 1st Armored and 1st Infantry) and 3rd Air Force out of Germany. See how they like them apples. Time for a bit of 'for us or against us', I fear.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818449522002-09-19T17:39:00.000-06:002002-09-19T17:39:58.000-06:00

Bill Quick has a post on Daily Pundit about the declining relevance of the United Nations. One phrase caught my eye: 'Saddam Hussein's rapidly shrinking lifespan'. It's then I thought, "what we need here is a Saddam Dead Pool". Email me your estimated date of demise for the old tyrant, I'll collect 'em, and the closest guess will win a prize of absolutely no monetary worth whatever. Woohoo!

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818428742002-09-19T16:43:00.000-06:002002-09-19T16:43:29.000-06:00

From the BBC, a report on tanks surrounding Arafat's compound after the latest suicide bombings. They want 20 people inside to surrender. They should give them 2 hours, and if they're not out by then, whistle up a squad of sappers and drop the building already.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818397282002-09-19T15:23:00.000-06:002002-09-20T02:34:08.000-06:00

Following a link I found on Iain Murray's England's Sword: What Farscape Character are you? Actually I'm not nearly as awful as Rygel. Honest.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818382142002-09-19T14:47:00.000-06:002002-09-19T15:02:09.000-06:00

Captain Courageous of the starship U.S.S. Clueless, Steven Den Beste, once again shows why he is one of the Blogosphere's greatest assets.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818358872002-09-19T13:52:00.000-06:002002-09-19T15:37:57.000-06:00

My God. I am speechless. Now there is a proposal making its way through the EU to forbid member states from seceding. We need to get out now, while the going is good. UPDATE: Iain Murray links to this piece as well. In the comments section Trent Telenko asks, rhetorically: Ahem, if Britain doesn't want to be in the E.U., just which EU army would keep Britain in? Especially given four Trident

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-818291462002-09-19T11:06:00.000-06:002002-09-19T11:39:55.000-06:00

In the Daily Telegraph today, an alarming example of statistical ineptitude. This article makes the absurd claim (in a discussion of child poverty levels), that the median of the income distribution is 'measured by halving the difference between the incomes of the highest- and lowest-paid people in Britain'. Rubbish. The median of a distibution is that value such that half of the population of a

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-817631632002-09-18T01:41:00.000-06:002002-09-18T01:42:41.000-06:00

Pace Natalie Solent, I am the most famous Gillies ever, EVER, EVER in the whole history of the internet, ever.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-817617072002-09-18T00:36:00.000-06:002002-09-18T02:07:16.000-06:00

I stopped blogging for quite some time. Why? Because I have to balance my work with my play. I have a real job, a difficult one, and I didn't feel that blogging was an activity that I could perform during working hours (I owe my employers more than that). That left my leisure time, and that was a resource I had to hoard. What was more important, promulgating my (often second hand, maybe -

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-794421692002-07-26T10:22:00.000-06:002002-07-26T10:32:44.000-06:00

James Lileks has an hilarious piece in his Backfence column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He riffs on snack foods and mentions the new Doritos Torengos. What is it with ad-men and daffy product names? What the hell is a Torengo? It's obviously meant to be Latinesque. From my (actually quite extensive, preen) knowledge of Spanish, I think I can safely say that there is no such word as 'torengo'

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-794407762002-07-26T09:46:00.000-06:002002-07-26T09:46:33.276-06:00

I think it's hilarious that the sole vote against James Traficant's expulsion came from Gary Condit. As Jay Leno said in his monologue last night, "Who says there's no honour among thieves?"

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-794404982002-07-26T09:39:00.000-06:002002-07-26T09:39:16.640-06:00

I see that the INS has finally relented and is allowing British 9/11 widow Deena Gilbey to stay. Good. But the thing that burns me is it took a huge outcry to get this to happen in the first place. Do the INS apparatchiks feel no sense of compassion? Has it been purged from them by the dead hand of bureaucracy? If the organisation was even marginally competent, that at least would be a saving

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-794104572002-07-25T15:59:00.000-06:002002-07-25T18:49:47.000-06:00

There's an horrendous story in the current issue of The Spectator about how Robert Mugabe is destroying Zimbabwe. It's hard to fathom the evil of this man - he seems bent on the sort of Gotterdämmerung that Hitler envisaged as the Third Reich fell about his ears. Something has to give. I just hope Mugabe lasts long enough for the mob to put his head on a pole.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-794103002002-07-25T15:55:00.000-06:002002-07-25T15:55:24.670-06:00

It's Annexation of Guanacaste Day here in sunny Costa Rica (slightly overcast Costa Rica actually) so we have the day off. Yay! In order to make the most of this I got immemorially sloshed last night. It seemed like the thing to do.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-792436932002-07-21T23:06:00.000-06:002002-07-21T23:06:28.683-06:00

Here is a great quote from an interview with Ann Coulter in the Daily Telegraph: Coulter's approach is not so much take no prisoners as capture one's opponents, string them up with piano wire, machine-gun them until all movement has ceased and then fire a celebratory volley into the air.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-791558172002-07-19T11:05:00.000-06:002002-07-19T11:16:16.000-06:00

The Movimiento Libertario is a very interesting political party (Spanish website, English version is here). It is just about the only avowedly-libertarian political party in the world with significant clout in a national assembly. They regularly return a number of deputies to Congress, and have been instrumental in voting down a number of nasty illiberal and expensive laws. I don't know why

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-791555652002-07-19T10:57:00.000-06:002002-07-19T11:06:44.000-06:00

I'm still getting the 'Error 503:Unable to load template file' message from Blogger. This has been a little over two weeks now. They say it's an intermittent problem with a server. Huh? Get it fixed already guys. There's no way I could justify going to Blogger Pro right now. I really wish I could afford my own hosting (by which I mean my machine, running my choice of OS and software, from my

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-791545752002-07-19T10:32:00.000-06:002002-07-19T10:32:07.966-06:00

Oh, this is reassuring. A passenger on board a flight from Bogota to Madrid pulls a box-cutter and starts waving it around. Turns out he was just a drunk nutcase, but it hardly fills me with confidence about flying. I have to make a flight to London in three weeks time. I've never been nervous about flying before, but this time I just know I will have that little frisson of anxiety until we're on

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-791543812002-07-19T10:26:00.000-06:002002-07-19T10:26:32.336-06:00

In an email to the inestimable Doctor Weevil I asked him not to think that all BritBloggers™ are as full of themselves as the egregious Brendan O'Neill (the Vast Right Wing BlogSpiracy's whipping boy du jour). He assures me he knows enough Brits to know that is not the case and then leaves me gape-jawed with astonishment at the revelation that of the twelve blogs that Brendan recommends as 'too

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789560182002-07-14T20:51:00.000-06:002002-07-14T20:51:55.296-06:00

One thing I've noticed after reviewing some of my earlier posts is that I use a lot of parenthetical clauses. I wonder if this stems from my job as a software engineer, where often expressing the logic of a task involves embedding it deeply within a hierarchy of nested statements. It might also have something to do with the idea that a good software engineer is aware that a partially-specified

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789547532002-07-14T20:18:00.000-06:002002-07-14T23:40:14.000-06:00

Of course, Nigel Farndale isn't in the same league as John Pilger really. Whenever I read anything of Pilger's I am reminded of Mary McCarthy's withering dismissal of Lillian Hellmann: "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and', and 'the'." Pilger is worse than that. The very dots of his i's and the serifs on the letters are pregnant with mendacity and bile.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789543582002-07-14T20:06:00.000-06:002002-07-15T00:48:10.000-06:00

Gonna fact check yo ass, beeyotch. Nigel Farndale in the Telegraph pens a classic bit of sloppy, blog-unaware journalism. Now Farndale's alright, really, but for crying out loud, how about this (talking about Exxon calling in favours from GWB): It takes impressive gall, for instance, to bankroll a presidential election campaign and then call in your favours just days after your man takes office.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789517482002-07-14T18:45:00.000-06:002002-07-14T19:01:40.000-06:00

Robert Matthews in The Sunday Telegraph writes this report about the witless scare story engendered by the results from a Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) study that apparently showed there was a 26% increase in the risk of breast cancer in patients undergoing HRT. Matthews points out that this is a 26% relative increase - a quarter more than a small number is still a small number. It's like the

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789456712002-07-14T15:12:00.000-06:002002-07-14T15:14:21.000-06:00

Well, here's a bit of welcome news for a change. It appears that the anti-semitic witch at UMIST who sacked two staff members for the unconscionable crime of being Israeli is herself facing dismissal: The decision prompted a wave of international condemnation and Prof Baker told The Telegraph yesterday: "I will almost certainly get the sack from UMIST now." Her action has been denounced both by

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789214192002-07-13T20:42:00.000-06:002002-07-13T21:56:11.000-06:00

My new link maintainer software is working. Now all I have to do is stuff the database with the URLs, dump them as HTML and paste into my template. It will make maintenance a lot easier and less error-prone.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789089262002-07-13T12:26:00.000-06:002002-07-13T21:20:29.000-06:00

The man tipped as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Wiliams, has become increasingly vociferous in his opposition to an attack on Iraq. Apparently, according to the good Doctor, we have to wait until Iraq has actually invaded another country before we have the right to attack. The statement is full of the usual warmed-over moral-equivalence, root-causes-of-violence schtick: "It is our

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789083952002-07-13T12:06:00.000-06:002002-07-13T20:41:09.000-06:00

I finally got round to seeing 'Attack of the Clones' a couple of weeks or so back. Wow. James Lileks can definitely recommend movies for me in the future. He liked Spider-Man. It rocked. He loved AOTC. So did I. It was at the very least ten times better than Episode I. The whole place erupted in applause and cheers when the credits rolled and the friend I was with (who is a totally committed Star

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789074052002-07-13T11:30:00.000-06:002002-07-13T21:08:54.000-06:00

When I was talking below about T and P values, I said that every statement has a P and a T associated with it . This is not strictly true. First, some definitions. T is the truth-value of a statement. Usually it is binary (i.e. true or false). 'All cats are mammals' has a binary truth-value (it is true). 'Some cats living at 123 New Street are more than five years old' also has a binary

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-789051312002-07-13T09:57:00.000-06:002002-07-13T12:10:08.000-06:00

What would it actually take to get Sinn Fein excluded from the Northern Ireland Assembly?. There have been massive riots over the last few days, well-documented reports of punishment beating and shooting, attempts to re-arm the IRA (while simultaneously releasing a few rusty old rifles and useless explosives), the arrest of three IRA operatives in Cuba training the FARC in bomb-making techniques,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788954182002-07-13T00:14:00.000-06:002002-07-13T00:15:18.000-06:00

My discovery a few weeks ago that Joan Kroc, the widow of Ray Kroc, the guy who made McDonalds massive, was a major Sandinista supporter led me to boycott the place. It just now struck me how incongruous it is that the anti-capitalists' icon of corporate greed should have a sad old lefty like Joan tied up with it. If any of them have ever heard of the Sandys then I'm sure they're just the sort of

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788937282002-07-12T23:16:00.000-06:002002-07-12T23:16:47.726-06:00

OK. I will try to restrict myself to substantive posts, rather than rants about Blogger.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788936932002-07-12T23:15:00.000-06:002002-07-12T23:23:30.000-06:00

It's like there's some sort of time delay between the system saying publishing has been successful, and it actually doing anything. Is this a load problem? I hope not, because hardware is expensive, and generally incompatible with free software.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788936032002-07-12T23:12:00.000-06:002002-07-12T23:22:02.000-06:00

Now I can post, and it shows up on the main page, but not in the edit window. This is unbelievable. Guys, there's a thing we software people call 'beta testing'. You really should try it...

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788930602002-07-12T22:55:00.000-06:002002-07-12T23:20:57.000-06:00

Safe mode is also essentially useless. If you don't get quote characters exactly right, then the software can't find post boundaries. It's taken me fifteen minutes to rectify an error of this nature. I'm a hacker. God knows how an ordinary Joe is meant to figure out the fix. Hmm. That Moveable Type looks nice...

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788925262002-07-12T22:37:00.000-06:002002-07-12T22:59:49.000-06:00

The trick seems to be to publish twice and ignore the template errors. Bizarre.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788922372002-07-12T22:29:00.000-06:002002-07-15T00:26:03.000-06:00

On one of my favourite sites, Libertarian Samizdata, there's been a to-and-fro discussion about the merits of creationism vs. evolution (especially neo-Darwinian evolution). Links (some of them, anyway) are here, here, here and here. There's a couple of interesting points raised in this thread, and this is one of my particular interests. First up, Brian Micklethwait goes over the 'non-overlapping

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788918772002-07-12T22:19:00.000-06:002002-07-12T22:19:47.693-06:00

This is getting ridiculous. Now it appears that not even the archives are getting updated with new content. Blogger is exhibiting all the symptoms of random management-driven tinkering. Listen up: if it works, stop buggering around with it.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788678302002-07-12T10:19:00.000-06:002002-07-12T22:55:14.000-06:00

Another splendid bleat from James Lileks (are there any other kind?). He talks about how no-one who is not a parent can understand the terror involved in raising a child. I'm sure he's right, but just the merest inkling that I do have is enough to make me wonder if I ever want to have children. I mean, of course I do, but I'm not sure if I'm capable of that sort of level of sustained emotional

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-788670702002-07-12T09:57:00.000-06:002002-07-12T09:57:08.976-06:00

Good God. What a crazy couple of weeks it's been. Database woes, hardware problems, you name it. When I get out of work at night I barely have the energy to haul my sorry carcass home and veg out in front of the TV. Blogging has been out of the question. It just takes too much energy. Shame, because there's been dozens of things I've wanted to spout off about.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-781214262002-06-23T23:39:00.000-06:002002-06-24T01:50:18.000-06:00

Next BlogProject™: expand my woeful links section on the left hand side. I am going to have to write a mini link maintainer tool (probably PHP+FrontBase SQL) to automate the HTML generation otherwise it's a giant pain in the arse to get right.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-781187552002-06-23T22:16:00.000-06:002002-06-23T23:25:26.000-06:00

OK, not to be outdone by the VodkaPundit and his yummy-sounding burgers, herewith the recipe for the Lasagna I have just finished scarfing: 400glean minced beef1medium carrot, grated1large onion, chopped fine3cloves garlic, crushed75gbutton mushrooms, sliced very thinly400gchopped peeled plum tomatoes1 cantomato puree, mixed with 250 ml water6-8pre-cooked spinach lasagna sheets100gfresh Parmesan

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-781180742002-06-23T21:57:00.000-06:002002-06-23T22:16:33.000-06:00

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has a revised scenario for an Israeli response to a 'mega-attack' (i.e. one in which hundreds or thousands of people are killed in one go). It's pretty chilling reading. This is what I mean when I talk about Israel being pushed over the edge. As an aside, there's a scene in the Tom Clancy novel 'The Sum of All Fears' where the U.S. President is discussing with his

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-781158492002-06-23T20:56:00.000-06:002002-06-23T23:33:22.000-06:00

The other post that caught my eye on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish is a good deal more heartening. In 'The Mainstream Advances' (sadly, no permalink) he discusses (in the context of an hysterical bed-wetter in The Nation by Richard Goldstein about the so-called 'homocons') how gay bookstores are on the decline, and how this indicates the mainstreaming of homosexuality. This is great news. If gay

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458340.post-781148442002-06-23T20:25:00.000-06:002002-06-23T23:29:01.000-06:00

A couple of great posts (well, dozens of course) on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. First up, he asks rather despairingly, (referring to a column by Stanley Fish) how we can possibly draw the distinction between right and wrong when a mother is not merely proud, but glad that her son has commiitted the murder of innocent people? That she has prayed to her God for him to kill as many of the 'enemy'

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18137696227587506004noreply@blogger.com