tachi-shon kinshi's Journal

1:55pm: Hey ASDA!
Ich werde nicht Ihr Weibchen sein

10:40pm: Urgent coded message to MI:7
HALP! The writers of Spooks are hatching an evil, demonic plan. The word on the ground is they're writing storylines so flimsy and stupid that we're already hearing reports of photons leaping out of television screens and throttling the frontal cortexes of vulnerable viewers. If they succeed completely in their plan, the consequences to our great nation will be disastrous!

10:47am: CONGRATULATIONS
to Rick Astley. We knew you could do it, man.

Also, don't forget GRAVITY tonight. Should be pretty interesting, and they've even got some muppet from Slimelight DJing innit.

3:56pm: Good article
in the Guardian about climate, economy, and civilisation (nicked from jupiter909)

11:17am: JavaScript raytracer... reprise
I maded a pretty. Users of decent browsers should go for the 800x640 mode and try random angles :D

4:31am: Geek out!
I've been noticing a bit of a kerfuffle lately regarding Web browsers, and JavaScript speed. When Google's Chrome came out, everybody wet their pants at the performance benchmarks. A few days later, Mozilla announced that their new engine had caught up.

Well, the only benchmarks I care about are my own benchmarks. So tonight I quickly hacked together a little JavaScript sphere raytracer with multiple lights, reflections, shadows, and objects, using the phong shading and illumination model. (Run of the mill stuff, really :)

If you're interested in the results, click here. Looks like Chrome shits clean down Firefox's neck while doing laps. Now, if only Google had chosen to support the canvas getImageData and putImageData methods, because you can't see the output! However, Firefox and Opera will display the pretty picture.

Enjoy.

1:01pm: MySQL's query optimiser...
doesn't.

Given a free day, I could write a better optimiser for a whole set of obvious general query semantics which they've neglected to even think about.

2:46pm: Interesting piece
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12dooling.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(More discussion here, although I've hijacked the story to talk about one of my personal beefs)

And to think, just a few weeks ago, I was having an argument with some other idiot about the role of computers vs traders in the stock market. He professed to believe that:

a) the stock market is predictable, and
b) traders have some kind of important role and aren't replaceable by a simple script.

Heh.

a) Anybody who's read into the maths and statistics of it will understand that market behaviour is simply a statistical/mathematical model. Another well-known model is the Standard Model of physics, which describes how particles and energy interact. However, just because you understand physics, does not mean you can predict when the next car crash will occur outside my window. Not without very, very detailed inside information anyway. Right? The stock market is unpredictable in exactly the same way. Yes, I was also completely astounded at hearing above idiot's assertion.

b) Beyond following the fairly transparent rules of stock market behaviour, no single trading strategy has ever been proven to be more effective than another -- except things relating to insider trading. All that's required is you follow the rules and obtain information (that is, the input variables) and process it as quickly as possible. This is why it is completely fucking ridiculous that city traders get any decent salary at all. A trader just needs a lucky month (which is statistically guaranteed to happen from time to time) and they will have a bunch of banks gagging to pay them millions to come and trade for them.

What a preposterously synthetic and over-inflated job position. Most of the decisions are already made by computer systems and traders are hardly more than a mouthpiece these days, yet they're still treated as being more valuable than gold-plated unobtanium. It's pure idiocy. There are other positions in the stock and financial markets which really do require supreme intellects and vast amounts of understanding and worth, but it is simply not true of the trader.

5:22pm: Add to "bullshit" list
Apropos of boozy conversation last night.

People who base their arguments on what was shoved down them during their piddly little Uni courses. THAT is nature/nurture, fucktard. Go ahead, limit yourself to that, because it's what you've been taught. I, on the other hand, will strive for more.

SOME people can, and DO, come up with original thoughts and ideas. Some people CAN divorce themselves from their nature/nurture, and some go on to create great things.

Your "nature/nurture" is never, EVER an excuse for being an idiot, or for accepting anything less than truth and integrity when the proof of this is clear. But this is how it is bandied: as an excuse.

"Oh, they can't help they act that way, it's in their nature". Well, I don't hate that they act that way. I hate that they were born with the faculties required for logic and reasoning, and have implicitly chosen not to use this gift. They have implicitly chosen to go along with everything instead of weighing things up constantly and striving for some kind of clarity of mind and integrity in beliefs.

You may say it was my nature to reject these things in the first place, or that I rebelled because of something in my "nurture". Oh, what a fucking quaint cop out. No. I strove. I fought and overcame many obstacles in my mind. I am learning, through trial and error, how to think and reason for myself.

To attribute something to "nature" is to say that it was, to some extent, pre-determined or statistically likely given the combination of factors. This is as much my "nature" as is the current position and velocity of every particle in the universe is the universe's nature. It's all been pre-determined, since the Big Bang. So why fight it? Why DO anything in the universe at all? Why contribute? Why not?

Fucking cop out.

No. To overcome "nature/nurture" is to break the momentum. Stop everything. Think about your life, your behaviours. Re-assess them, weigh them up, better yourself. Be more than what your childhood and cultural momentum gives you. And stop using such weak, all-encompassing and yet utterly insightlesss arguments.

Edit: And if some outside factor prompts or affects you in some way, it does not mean that you are NOT responsible for your decision or action. It works both ways.

I despise this kind of fruitless argument which only happens with amateur philosophers. It seems people who argue like this, are like the new mathematician who is told he may only advance from A to B by halving his distance over and over. He knows that, with the rule expressed in that form, he will never quite get there. The engineer, on the other hand, can understand the rule, accept it, yet still feel no conflict in arriving at his destination. Debating about some rules simply hinders you from getting where you're going, and you need to know which rules they are, and be comfortable with them, and choose not to be limited by them.

9:05pm: New hard drive
It's bang on 50,000 times the size of my first ever hard drive. It'll be full by Friday morning. Seriously...

Some things never change :)

11:10pm: ...
Poll #1262573 Hamster names
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

FIGHT!

10:19pm: My flatmate uv_lue
is SQUEEing. VIOLENTLY.

11:51pm: So,
http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ ?

9:00pm: Today I have mostly been
1) fuming at the boundless innate human stupidity that this world is steeped in past the brim.
2) despairing at the pervasive ill intentions found in most people with authority over you or me
3) hating politicians

And, lastly, Sarah Palin for President!

1:36pm: I win
at sandwiches.

Melted camembert on op of 3 rashers of bacon on top of fried garlic onions, tomatoes and mushrooms on top of a bed of spinach lubricated with mayonnaise inside a warm pitta.

Omnomnomnom.

3:23pm: Last night I got drunk
and put a DONK on Rihanna.

Fuck, I even annoy myself when drunk *erf*

4:48pm: Stolen from lisa

5:49pm: Glade: Quote of the Weekend
"Untermensch puts the DUHHHHHHH in fundamental"

12:34pm: Nowadays...
Everybody purports to have an interest in vocalising a point of view; however, said vocalisation results in no effective communication of any particular statement, but rather simply a torrent of unintelligible nonsense. These wilful violators of their mothers' sexual sanctity give the impression of having disregarded their memories concerning Dre.

1:03pm:

1:17am: Finally
Some kinda body mod I could really go for!

Introducing LASER tattoos. With fricken LASERs. So much potential. My inner (and outer) geek requires it.

2:45pm: Word of the day
Cunniflatulus. (George Carlin would agree)


_{I rule.}

12:51pm: Global Noise Movement vs Slimelight reminder!
Saturday, 1 March 2008, Slimelight, London
Global Noise Movement vs Slimelight.

TOP FLOOR – LIVE ACTS + DJ’s
======================
> 22.00 Dj GASSMANN vs UNTERMENSCH with oldschool EBM/Industrial to warm up
> 22.45 16PADNOISETERRORIST (LIVE)
> 23.30 S.K.E.T. (LIVE) TBC.
> 00.30 Djane AURA KAMIKURA (GNM)
> 01.15 NOISUF-X (LIVE)
> 02.15 Dj GASSMANN (SLIMELIGHT / GNM)
> 03.00 WINTERKÄLTE (LIVE)
> 04.00 Djane MYSTICA (GNM)
> 04.45 Dj PETE (SLIMELIGHT)
> 05.30 Dj DER KLEINE LAKAI (GNM)
> 06.15 Dj MAK (SLIMELIGHT)
> 07:30 – GO HOME!

GROUND FLOOR – BREAKS, DnB, DnNOISE FLOOR
======================
> 23.00 Djane INYAN (GNM)
> 00.00 Dj PETE (SLIMELIGHT)
> 01.00 Dj ZROWRK (GNM)
> 02.00 Dj UNTERMENSCH (SLIMELIGHT)
> 03.00 Dj ELIAS ZORN (GNM)
> 04.00 Dj DYTHLAN (SLIMELIGHT)
> 05.00 Dj HALO7 (GNM)
> 06.00 – PANIC because the bar closed an hour ago

( Flyer under cut because it's well sexy )
^{PS: It's also my birthday, bring cake}

4:51pm: The key to Africa's success, economically and socially
( large image )
Not sure where to start with that, really. That's basically the pervading attitude in and around South Africa at the moment (the article is from a newspaper in Botswana). What, exactly, were the anti-apartheid freedom fighters fighting for? The absolute devolution of society? Politicians in South Africa talk about what a good model Zimbabwe is - yes, seriously.

The future president of South Africa is a known criminal. In a few weeks' time, he will have effected the disbandment of the Scorpions, which is the elite anti-corruption and anti-white-colour crime investigation task force of South Africa. They were the only remaining organisation with the power to question and indict high ranking officials on charges relating to corruption. It should be noted that MOST of all public funds received by government agents and organisations goes missing off the books.

The country that once used to provide electricity to most southern African states now no longer generates enough power to run its own industry. Public infrastructure is in tatters, and degrading quickly, thanks largely to deeply rooted fraud and embezzlement. The divide between rich and poor has somehow widened over the last 10 years, although the demographics have changed somewhat.

For some light background information about Jacob Zuma, watch this Panorama [.torrent] episode called "No More Mandelas". It's all a bit shit, really.

11:51pm: It makes sense now
( Venn Diagram of Stupidity, Politics, and Religion )
Nicked off jupiter909