Tuesday, February 28, 2006

 

Online games

Found an online adventure game, via metafilter. Episode
one two three and four.

Monday, February 27, 2006

 

Information

I read faster than I talk, I talk much faster than I write, it took me ages to write this:)

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

 
Finally sound on my new mobo works, after days of scrabbling about. The problem was, an employee at Nvidia informed me that the Nvidia chipset did not work with ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) it only worked with OSS (http://www.opensound.com/) I was given wrong information.

Here was my cure.

ftp://202.65.194.18/pc/hda/alc880d/r...-3.5-6.tar.bz2

Sunday, February 19, 2006

 

Reason for hiatus

I have problems with my new 64 bit mobo and Mandriva, but some problems I have solved, my first problem was I could not get online via the onboard ethernet - solution was use my PCI ethernet card, bingo, I am online.

This caused another problem, I seemed to be unable to share my connection, a few days of tweaking things and now it works fine.

At the moment (well at the moment, I am doing something else:) I am trying to get sound working.

Friday, February 17, 2006

 

Only one a day

Space could be described as the distance between one thing and another, this
entails sadly, the definition of a thing. Problem is when a thing is looked
at closely it always, looks like more than one thing. There seems to be
space within the atom itself.

We live in an atmosphere, people talk of 'space', as though 'space' is
defined as a larger distance between things. Gravity seems to decrease the
distance between atoms. Furthermore it seems to decrease the distance
between electrons and the nucleus.

To define what is, and what is not, requires set theory. We use language to
differentiate and to catagorise, problem is with this is, between one
catagorisation and another we have fuzzy boundaries. I live on an island,
how long is the coastline of Britain? Get out your measuring stick, and
start measuring. The greater the accuracy the coastline of Britain is
measured, the more it increases. Take one bay, measure it with a microscope
you will discover, the higher resolving power of the microscope, the longer
the bay seems to be.

How humans long to live in a tidy universe, where everything does as it is
told.

Peter.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

Written four years ago

Sitting here watching curling, these guys are playing marbles on ice with a manic ferocity, scrubbing the ice frenetically with a thing that looks like a broom.

Is there no lengths that human beings will go to, in the search of a dopamine hit. The number of different sports there are is quite astonishing really. People base their entire lives around it, like people used to base their entire lives around religion. It makes sense really from an evolutionary perspective. Once the prevailing paradigm changed from God to genetics, the competive spirit went for a literal fitness instead of a religious fitness. The sports coaches replacing the priests in being the ones who know what is good for us. This is all well and good when young that body beautiful is the idol that western culture worships at. Better something than nothing I suppose. I find it rather odd though, that physical prowess seems to achieve a higher popularity than mental prowess. I suppose the folk wisdom has it, that people who have mental prowess, can use that ability to make money and therefore do not need popularity. The reason I find this odd is that when the human species is compared to other species we are not that well endowed speed wise, strength wise etc


Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 18:43:34 -0000
Reply-To: Peter Turland peter@PTURLAND.FSNET.CO.UK
Sender: Philosophy in Europe PHILOS-L@LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK
From: Peter Turland peter@PTURLAND.FSNET.CO.UK
Subject: Cooking philosophy

Recipe for creating a philosopher

Take a particle of particularity and a specialisation of generalisation. Stir well. Add a chicken and an egg. When the flavour of the chicken and egg have marinated the mix, remove them. Bung in lots of sorts, flavour with verbs, leave for a few thousand years then slowly with great care, add some ism's. When baking the cake one must consider wether to bake from the inside out, or the outside in. If you think you can not bake the cake from the inside out, I came across some thing the other day, on a website, that was rather intriguing, apparently if you microwave a block of margarine it heats up from the middle outwards. I have a problem with the metaphor here, I can't imagine the philosophical equivalent of margarine. I must also confess I have taken liberties with the idea wether one tackles the problem, from the inside out, or the outside in, normal computer parlance has it, either bottom up, or top down.

Interesting resonances, If you write a program from the bottom up you have less of an idea what the final result will be, it is a much more messy route, but I used to write tighter routines that way. Basically for those who have never tackled byte mining, a program is a collection of routines, sort of, check input, do sums, update display, that kind of thing. All the routines are called from a giant loop. Top down is where you write the giant loop first, then write the routines. When you read the programming books you are advised to adopt the top down approach, there is an inherent danger with this method, you end up only writing the giant loop and using other peoples routines, to the point where ones abilities to write a routine atrophies. So if one of the routines is buggie, which it often is, the dreaded blue death occurs and all your hard work is lost.

Written to Kuro5hin on Sunday the 24th march 2002

Things cost work not money, THUD.

Work is the expenditure of energy, to the benefit of others, that cannot be achieved by machinery and automation, THUD.

One man with a tractor and plough can plough approx. thirty times the acreage in a day, that one man with a horse and plough can , THUD.

A things value is inversely proportional to its scarcity, THUD.

Design it, build it, then deliver it, the rest is information.THUD

As the process of copying information gets cheaper, the information gets cheaper, THUD.

Some people make a living, by getting between producer and consumer and controlling supply, THUD.

Economics has become the science of increasing demand, whilst at the same time, trying to get two men to do three mens work, THUD.

Investing in public utilities, carries about as much risk, as wrestling with a dead sheep, THUD.

A train costs virtualy the same amount to run full, as empty, THUD.

Public utilities have fixed costs, therefore the concept of profit is meaningless, unless slavery is advocated,THUD.

The internet should be a global public utility funded by subscription, the Tobin tax would be a good mechanism and give Mr Tobin a nice epitaph.

The BBC works very nice without spam, THUD.

Economics is about resource management, not profit, THUD.

Economics graduates learn their economics at UNI, from other economics graduates, academic incest, THUD.

I learned my economics behind the wheel of a truck, THUD.

THUD

THUD

THUD

THUD

THUD

THUD

THUD

THUD

CRAAASSSSHH

......I think one of my wheels has fallen off.



Wednesday, February 15, 2006

 

64 bit

I wrote last week of upgrading my system to 64 bit, this I have done. At the moment I am wrestling with my OS to get it to recognise everything, I have not got sound, onboard ethernet or java working yet. The problem is the mobo' is state of the art and the distro I use (mandriva) has not quite caught up yet, neither has java.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

 

Amazing new interface

Here (flash movie)

Friday, February 10, 2006

 

Feringhee: The India Diaries: 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005

Feringhee: The India Diaries: 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005

 

News on the IQ front

Weird or what? I've just done the IQ test here this is my result

YOUR IQ SCORE IS:

127

Your score places you in the top five percent of the population. This qualifies you for membership in the International High IQ Society.

What makes it even weirder, with nearly all of the missing square problems, I did not have a clue and just guessed them. So from 106 - 108 to 127, somebody must know something I don't, LOL, or conversely, I scored so low that they thought I would be dumb enough to buy their personal assessment thingee.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

 

64 bit system bought

It will be assembled tomorrow, I hope all goes well.

Monday, February 06, 2006

 

What doctors learn from patients

If you drive your crotch rocket at 120+ miles per hour after drinking a case of beer....... be thankful all you had was 2 compound fractures in your left leg and nasty road rash on another 25 % of your body. Better that than 6 feet under.
__________________
Wherever life takes me I'll make the most of it.

Copied from here beware! make sure you have no pressing appointments, before clicking the link

Thursday, February 02, 2006

 

Oblivion

Everyday is a 24 hour step to oblivion.

This is probably because I cannot type as fast as I can speak.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

 

Googlemail

I now have a googlemail account, not because I really wanted one, but because a friend wanted one. Thing is, you can get a gmail account without an invite, but you have to supply a mobile phone number, some people disagree with this, not surprising really.

I don't have a mobile phone number, does this make me weird - probably, I don't have a mobile phone number, because basicaly I am not mobile, I stay in the same place, apart from health issues, I am being a parent to a parrot.

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