Alan Baruz’ Rough Days for a Gentil Knight offers a lengthy except from a Slashdot interview with Perl overlord Larry Wall concerning the bit-state of theistic faith and how that relates to Perl.

I have faith that one reader will find it interesting as well, even if I’d like to see Wall’s interesting and amusing metaphor both expanded and challenged.

I tried to write about my thoughts on this here. I couldn’t either explain myself to my own satisfaction or write something which I could imagine standing behind.

An infinity of futility is bearable only in absence of intellect and consciousness. Wait, isn’t that Buddhism?

I guess it’s best for me to say I find the idea of the nonexistence of souls and deities infinintely more comforting than the inverse. Which doesn’t mean I hold that idea to be true, only that I like it better than the opposite.

The TiLP project plus my incoming graphlink USB cable will allow me to dump to and fro from my desktop to my TI-83 graphing calculator! I can’t wait!

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a full-on math retard who has never, not once, acheived a grade higher than a D- in any math-oriented class. It’s like being tone deaf. I hate it.

I should actually explore this at greater length, since verbal and symbolic logic have always been the merest trifles to me. Somehow, if you call it math, I lose all aptitude and become Monsieur Hulot.

Well-meaning, capable of discretion and careful distinction, able to restate and clarify the most arcane points of procedure verbally, I immediately become a pratfalling, limb-tangling menace and figure of fun in any given math-oriented learning environment.

Still, my earliest programming experience was writing BASIC demos on a hand-held japanese calculator in 1982, and I still remember my dad coming home from work in Boston, circa 1972, with a blue-plastic TI calculator that had cool blue LEDs and operated via a metal, hardwired stylus clacking against brass-tone contact points. It was boss cool.)

UPDATE: oops, it wasn’t a TI. It was almost surely a Litton Industries Royal IV , one of only two models of calculator known to employ a stylus back in the day. I remember, as a little kid when Dad brought it home, asking why it didn’t use buttons. He told me that “studies” had indicated a higher degree of accuracy (fewer fumbled digit entries) in input. I recall being skeptical, but there’s a germ of something there: we’ve employed sticks held in the hand to make expressive and information-carrying marks for longer than we’ve been writing. It can be argued that the stylus is a more mature technology than all others but for weapons, bread, and beer.

It’s definitely more mature than the button.

Chuck Holliday maintains a survey of the evidence, which is very intriguing indeed.

I was fortunate enough to come across the link to Mr. Holliday’s page at the too-good-to-beleive Zymoglyphic Museum, which specializes in one of my favorite inappropriate technologies, taxidermy and its’ peculiar ways.

Frederik Ruysch is a precursor to the contemorary German artist who creates tableaux from plasticized human corpses. I haven’t been able to bring myself to investigate the contemporary person’s work, but I find Rausch’s work delightfully horrible.

Naturally, I was directed hence courtesy of the indispensible Metafilter. And another person who enjoyed the link pointed the way to this portrait of Dr. Rausch.

BLATHER :: ENTRIES

Barol finds that some have descended to a new low. I mean it, a new, new, low low low.

Apple’s Newton Just Won’t Drop

I knew there was a reason I held on to my 130. In point of fact, I have back-burner project to install a WiFi driver on it, since I have a spare 80211b card lyin’ around.

Ha-ha yourself, Nelson.

I’m With Dick! Let’s Make War!

Something is NOT RIGHT when I link to a smartass culturejammer’s sticker, and then click into Maureen Dowd making the same exact point, with more venom and less wit.

Subvert Press: The ‘Thank You’ Sticker

Oh it’s cute.

Eric Sooros at the Wired Fool points out some of the stuff that makes him (and me!) glad to have broadband to the home.

Deckchairs on the Titanic gets mad enough at Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser to state that “…he sucks.” This ire is prompted by Schlosser’s enthusiasm for In-n-Out Burger, as cited in an NYT story. I dropped a line a moment ago, enquiring why that makes Schlosser suck, haven’t heard back yet, but hope to! I enjoy Deckchairs, and this reaction was confusing to me, I must admit.

As I wrote, Andrew Boardman replied to my query: “The reason that I think that Mr. Schlosser sucks is that he has written a book essentially condemning the restaurants and the meat industry that they support — and the health problems that result.”

So there you have it.

Finally, I really enjoy Tod Dominey’s site, “What Do I Know”, as much for its’ understated elegance of design and presentation as fr Mr. Dominey’s thoughtful writing. Here’s a recent entry about why it’s fun to fix things in an old house, and why it’s good to live in an old house.

the Hurlothrumbo was Emperor Norton’s steamship. Who was Emperor Norton? Why, he was the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. What? You never heard tell of the fella?

This site will help, a bit.

A big TYVM to Richard Gillman’s Absolute Piffle.

(Updated with archive.org link February 2013, it seems the Clampers behind hurlothrumbo.org let the domain lapse.)

The Fat Guy tenders one hella kind offer to KG. Hmm, can i offer Ken both stadiums? WHY OF COURSE!

Hm. Now, would working something like this up be a KGOTW? And does it interfere with my plans for the KGOTW already in process?

Oh, the humanity….

(And before I forget, TFG is looking for an Aeron, but, but… none are to be had! Should I tell him about my free pre-Aeron Herman Miller? Or is that taunting?)