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patty Status: Official gofer Location: Melbourne Country: Australia Gender: Male Age: 24 Type of artist: Jack of all trades master of but a few Registered: Aug 15, 2006 Last online: 2h ago

Email: patty@storm-artists.net

Artworks: 126 Scraps: 61 Favourites Given: 56 Favourites Received: 157 Stars Given: 25 Stars Received: 25 Comments Received: 6283 Comments Given: 5330 Postcount: 5586 Pageviews: 3090

Written by patty
At Jul 31, 2008, 10:58:20 AM

For those who don't know, I'm moving house (on Saturday, specifically). This is an awesome thing in more ways than I can count, but it does mean I'll be offline while the phone service and ADSL service get transferred and set up on the new line.

The phone service on this line is scheduled to be disconnected between 8am and 12 noon AEST on Friday 1 August (tomorrow), which will immediately take down my internet access. The phone service is scheduled to be provisioned on the new line sometime between 12 noon and 5pm on the same day, so we will at least have (landline) phone over the weekend. Since Telstra's master database of active phone numbers tends to lag somewhat, and since I can't even officially request my new ADSL service until that database catches up, my chances of getting ADSL at the new place on Friday are basically nil. They don't do anything much over the weekend, so I'll almost certainly be putting the request in on Monday morning. Depending on a number of things (including luck and how much I hassle them (politely)), I should be back online sometime between Wednesday 6 and Friday 8 (inclusive).

Try not to do too much damage while I'm gone, mmkay?

Oh, and at the new house my computer will be wired directly to the modem/router (instead of going through the wireless secondary router, complete with periodic dropouts).

Written by patty
At Jul 12, 2008, 1:07:41 PM


Article

Yes, the article is arguably biased; the writer is clearly angry with McCain. So am I. Feel free to ignore opinions from him and from me; look at the actual information, and make up your own mind.

I feel I should say this again: John McCain is a liar. Demonstrably, incontrovertibly a liar. This is yet more evidence of that.

The views expressed here are the individual views of Patty, and are not endorsed by Storm-Artists.net

Written by patty
At May 4, 2008, 10:07:05 AM


It took me long enough, but I finally figured out just what I do feel for [beruthiel]. Very fortunately for me, she apparently feels similarly about me. This baffles me somewhat, but I'm certainly not about to complain.

Anyway, the upshot is that I am definitively off the market. Henceforth I am a taken man, now belonging entirely to this rather remarkable woman.

Life is good.

Written by patty
At Apr 4, 2008, 11:10:52 AM

This is not an essay to preach evolution. If you believe in literal Biblical creationism, then nothing I can say here is going to change your mind. If you actually have any respect for science, then I don't need to change your mind. Either way, no purpose is to be served there.

What I would like to do is respond to a few points I saw in an opinion piece recently.

While some may argue the statue was not locally done in effort to mock or belittle Christians, the idea of the spaghetti monster in its original context was proposed to do just that.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster was not intended to mock or belittle Christians. It was intended to illustrate a point, and to mock one objectionable thing done by some Christians. That is not the same thing as "to mock or belittle Christians".

the spaghetti monster concept was created to undermine the credibility of Intelligent Design as an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution
That is true, if we assume that Intelligent Design had any credibility to begin with. "Intelligent Design" is nothing more than a more-fashionable term for "creation", substituted when "creation" became legally untenable at a particular point in the 1980s.

In spite of their best efforts to appear as the objective, rational party, those opposed to Intelligent Design and the influence of religion upon the state have shown themselves to not be so "neutral" after all
The FSM is essentially a thought experiment: "if Christian literalist creationism has to get equal time, then the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly truth should also get equal time". The premise is not that FSM should be favoured; rather, the intention is that neither religion should appear in a science curriculum. The proponents of Pastafarianism aren't emotionally invested in their noodly deity; rather, they are using Him as a tool to demonstrate the inherent fallacy of the 'equal time' idea. If and when scientists try to get equal time in religion class, religious folks might have a case for equal time in science class.

modern Darwinist dogma is even more ridiculous in saying the universe came into existence out of nothing
1. Modern science has a number of theories about the origin of the universe, of which the Big Bang theory currently seems the most plausible. None of these theories is dogma.
2. Charles Darwin is popularly credited with introducing the theory of evolution. This theory deals with the development of life over time, and has nothing to do with the origin of the universe.

If Congress is to give no precedence to one religion over another, let’s make sure the Church of Darwin is treated no differently.
If this is referring to education, it goes straight back to 'equal time', which would then require us to give equal time to Zeus and the FSM (among others) in science class.

Written by patty
At Apr 2, 2008, 2:37:17 PM

Note: This essay is written on the assumption that there is a god, and that Christianity in general is mostly right about who and what He is. I don't actually believe that, but it's the appropriate position from which to write this essay.

Assumptions from basic theology:
-God is omniscient
-God is omnipotent
-God is wholly good
-God has a Plan which reflects His goodness

What is the purpose of intercessory prayer? That is, what exactly is the purpose of asking God for something?

Remember, God knows everything. He is all-powerful. He is good. As a consequence of these three things, he is obliged to do what is best (which is His Plan). That being the case, there are only a few scenarios available when you ask God for something...

Case 1: Your request is not part of the Plan. God has two choices:
a. Stick with the ineffable Plan of ultimate good; or
b. Tamper with the ineffable Plan of ultimate good, thereby damaging the universe because some sinful human who knows practically nothing told Him to.

Case 2: Your request is part of the Plan. Unless He is a perverse sort, He doesn't have a choice here; He will continue with the Plan.

Only in option 1b does your prayer actually make a difference. Note that option 1b is both implausible and intrinsically bad.

Why do Christians spend so much time and energy asking God to change His Plan (and the world) for them?

NB: I'm aware that this applies to some other religions as well. I'm dealing specifically with mainstream Christianity here, because it is the religion with which I am most familiar.

Written by patty
At Mar 24, 2008, 3:30:51 PM


I suddenly understand. What I understand may turn out to be partially wrong, but it makes sense to me and fits with everything I've learned. It also explains a few things I had wondered about.

When a guitar string is plucked, it is plucked at a single point. From that point, waves travel in both directions along the string, are reflected off the endpoints (bridge at one end, nut or fret at the other), and so on. The timbre depends on where the string is plucked, and I now realise that this is at least partly because the interference between the two waves (which greatly influences timbre) depends on the relative distances from the plucking point to the string's two endpoints. Not the main epiphany, but a neat little sidelight.

When the string is plucked, it is stretched slightly and then released. The strain decays gracefully - that extra length is maintained by the waves traveling along the string in both directions, and it decays along with the sound intensity as energy is lost in various forms (not in order of significance):
-Friction with air converts kinetic energy into heat energy, which is radiated in the infra-red.
-Collision with the air transfers cyclic kinetic energy (acoustic energy) to the air.
-Kinetic energy is transferred to the guitar body every time a wave rebounds off either of the endpoints - the body then vibrates and collides with air to dissipate this energy in acoustic form.

Ignoring harmonics for now, the fundamental frequency produced by the string is determined by string length (how far a wave must travel before it's back where it started) and tension  and string weight(which determine how fast the wave travels). This is why guitars are inherently difficult to tune accurately - the very act of plucking a string affects the pitch at least slightly, and every single note played drops at least slightly in pitch as its amplitude decays. Note that the difficulty of keeping a guitar properly tuned is a separate issue, caused mostly by the progressive stretching of nylon strings under tension (steel strings hold their tuning far better than nylon strings, and even nylon strings hold their pitch better once they are 'broken in').

This revelation brought to you by my brain, in association with the number 2 and the letters A and M.

Written by patty
At Mar 20, 2008, 11:08:04 PM


The context is rather different, but I discovered last night that a man by the name of Frederick Douglass summed up patriotism better than I have managed so far. In a speech he gave 160 years ago, he said this about it:

I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins. It is righteousness that exalteth a nation while sin is a reproach to any people.

For those who are interested, here are the whole speech and Douglass' biography.

In case anyone's wondering, this quote was brought to my attention by the folks at www.evil.com, who do tend to subvert their domain name from time to time.

Written by patty
At Feb 26, 2008, 8:34:43 AM

Though most of us will stand and fight
When fight we must to save ourselves
The best of us will stand and fight
The more when someone else needs help

Written by patty
At Feb 23, 2008, 6:55:06 AM


Yes, I know it's something of a dead horse. Unfortunately, it's also a current issue. I'd like to state, explain and then defend my opinion. If you have a rational objection, please state it.

opinion, in a nutshell
Abortions in the first trimester should be legally available to any woman.

"Abortion is murder."
This statement invariably shows one failing of a black-and-white mindset. At the latter end of a pregnancy, a baby is quite clearly a living human being (and killing such is murder). The black-and-white mindset cannot cope with a continuous spectrum, so it must draw a line between two absolutes. This line is sometimes drawn at conception, which is where the "abortion is murder" argument comes from.

In this context, the concept of 'drawing a line' is inappropriate. A fertilised ovum has the potential to become a human being, but it is not in itself a human being. It cannot think, cannot feel, cannot suffer. We know these things. Therefore the abortion of that cell is not murder.

At one end of pregnancy (ie. at conception), abortion is not murder. At the other end (ie. just before birth) it most certainly would be murder. Between these two points, there is no definitive line at which abortion ceases to be acceptable (acceptable to whom, anyway?). Arbitrarily, I have chosen "the end of the first trimester" as my line, three months into pregnancy. The exact placement of this artificial line is a decision which should be informed by more medical science than I can command, but placing this line at the moment of conception is silly.

If we're worrying about potential humans, then we should be legally required to take every opportunity for impregnation. Otherwise potential humans are being washed away in every menstrual discharge and every extra-vaginal ejaculation. If we're worrying about causing suffering, then we should take note of the medical evidence demonstrating that the nervous system (a necessary prerequisite for pain in humans) does not exist in the fertilised ovum. If we are worrying about causing suffering, then we should definitely consider the mother.

purpose of outlawing
While it is true that laws are supposed to reflect community values on the whole, I contend that actions should only be criminalised in order to protect the victim(s). Other than outdated sodomy laws and drug laws (and abortion wherever it is criminal), I can't think of any criminal action which does not satisfy this requirement. In early-term abortion, I contend that there is no victim. I do expect that some readers will challenge me to name the victims of various criminal actions, and I do welcome that. I'll deal with drugs in a later paragraph.

"primo non nocere" (first, do no harm)
Some women will have abortions. This has been the case since ancient times, and history shows conclusively that criminalisation cannot prevent it.

With the benefit of modern medical science, abortions can be carried out quite safely (rather more safely than childbirth, incidentally). Abortion is still a highly unpleasant process for the patient, but at least it's safe. This, of course, is only an option if abortion is not criminalised.

When abortion is criminal, women who are determined to have an abortion typically go to backyard abortion 'clinics'. This is extremely dangerous, medically speaking. Women die, and I'm told that it's a particularly nasty way to die.

"People shouldn't be having sex unless they are willing to risk the results of it."
History shows very clearly that criminalisation of abortion does not stop people from having sex. Therefore this point is irrelevant.

Drugs
I believe that personal use of any drug should not be criminal. I won't write the whole essay I'd need to write in order to fully explain my position on that, but I needed to point this out so that people don't use drug laws against me on the issue of abortion.

Written by patty
At Feb 13, 2008, 1:02:58 AM

Politics:
Today I am proud to have voted for Kevin Rudd in the last election, as well as proud to be Australian. That is all

Hardware:
We tend to take things for granted, but think about it...
I was mowing our yard, and the mower suddenly sounded awful. I stopped it, poked and prodded, eventually figured out it'd thrown one of the bolts securing the engine casing. I couldn't find the bolt (I tried on the off-chance), so I took the matching bolt out and took it down the the hardware store to match.
Here's the part that's amazing if you think about it...
I walked in there with a bolt off a mower - that's all I knew. A few minutes later I walked out with a dozen substitute bolts (with nuts), for a few dollars. It's phenomenal, the sheer availability of anything and everything.

Written by patty
At Feb 3, 2008, 11:32:24 AM


Just got back from a weekend interstate, which was brilliant. Drove up with Mum for my cousin's wedding (yay family!), and also managed to spend a few hours with [beruthiel] (again with the yayness, seriously snugglable honorary sister)

Anyway, I'm not writing this entry to talk about the weekend as such...

While I was up there, I spent some time writing more on The Mind Reader WIP (introduction: Arthur). I reckon the new bits are kinda significant, so I figured I'd mention them here. Feel free to check it out, or feel free not to

Peace,
Patty

Written by patty
At Dec 21, 2007, 1:58:33 PM

See you all in 2008

Written by patty
At Dec 15, 2007, 2:37:28 PM

Should I be bound by rules supposedly handed down by a god in whom I do not believe? I think not.

I believe that each and every human should be allowed to believe whatever he or she wants to believe. If someone believes homosexuality is a sin, that's fine (though it's unfortunate when children are indoctrinated into hatred). Likewise if someone wants to believe that it is a mortal sin merely to fight for a country which tolerates homosexuality, that is entirely their prerogative (though preaching it obnoxiously infringes the rights of others and therefore should not be allowed). Freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of religion. All good things.

The trouble comes when people with religious beliefs (generally fairly extreme ones) attempt to impose those beliefs (and the attendant rules and restrictions) upon the populace in general, believers and nonbelievers alike. We in the Western world seem quite happy to condemn this in assorted acknowledged theocracies elsewhere in the world (unless there's political reason not to), but we seem to let it pass in our own backyard. I'm not saying this is anything new; it goes back thousands of years, and arguably predates civilisation itself. What I am saying is that we tend to pretend that it isn't the case now. Wherever it is illegal for two consenting men to have sex in private, religious freedom is incomplete at best, nonexistent at worst. The same applies wherever it is illegal for a pregnant woman to artificially terminate a pregnancy in its early stages (later stages get tricky, but the first few months are pretty straight-forward). Note that I may not personally like these things; regardless, they should not be illegal. I am a heterosexual man, and yet I will fight for the rights of homosexual men to have sex in private (women don't seem to face quite the same legal discrimination. I find abortion repugnant, but I will fight for the right of any woman to abort a pregnancy (though there's room for some negotiation as to how late and for what reasons).

As anyone reading this is probably aware, I personally do not believe in any god. However, there are certain things which I believe are wrong and yet which I do not want criminalised. The obvious example is adultery. I strongly believe that this is wrong, because of the harm it causes. Despite this, I do not want adultery criminalised. If such a thing were suggested, I would strongly oppose it.

The point here is, freedom from religion would be a nice option to have. Please? Oh, and this applies to every religion - Christianity just happens to be the one causing problems in the Western world at present.

Written by patty
At Dec 4, 2007, 11:21:30 AM


Intro:
A few days ago, I was planning to rewatch the video clips I have of inappropriate taser use by authorities and then post a journal suggesting that they not be used routinely. Warning: Most of these videos freak me out. And I don't freak out easily.

Videos:
Speeding Ticket Taser
Sheffield Village Police Taser Incident
"Don't tase me, bro!"
UCLA Student Tasered By Police In Library
Warren Police Officer tasers handcuffed woman
Woman Gets Tasered
Unnecessary Taser Use At Anti-War Demonstration
Taser Death By RCMP at Vancouver Airport (I still haven't watched this one)

UN quicker on the draw:
A few days ago, the UN pre-empted my planned journal rather dramatically when it declared tasers "a form of torture", which "can even cause death". This was prompted partly by at least 6 deaths by taser in North America in the previous week.

News stories:
Tasers a form of torture, says UN - Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
Tasers a form of torture, says UN - Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)
U.N.: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture - CBS News
Terror police 'shot' man in coma - BBC (old news, but seriously frightening)

Opinion:
I have no issue with tasers themselves. They offer a (normally) non-lethal means of temporary incapacitation at minimal risk to police. As such, they are a valuable tool with the potential to save lives on both sides of the law.

The problem is that some officers are using the devices routinely. This is torture, police brutality, and extremely dangerous. These devices are not toys; they are far less dangerous than guns, but they are still potentially lethal (regardless of what their manufacturer might claim).

Uses for tasers:
Self-defence
Entirely valid. If an officer's life is threatened, necessary force is justified. In such circumstances, a taser is preferable to a gun.
Subduing someone
This is torture: inflict extreme pain until the victim stops struggling. Examples: The speeding ticket taser video above, and this news article: No age limit on Gwinnett police Taser policy (in which an unarmed, handcuffed 14-year-old girl is tasered despite the presence of at least two police officers)
Preventing someone from running away
Ludicrous, and mentioned only because it was suggested as a justification for taser use in the Utah Highway Patrol incident (video above). Police have the resources to deal with such things, and so so routinely. The use of a taser in such circumstances makes no sense; there is simply no benefit except intimidation.

Conclusion:
I have a great respect for the police. In my experience, the vast majority of officers do their jobs well. However, I do sometimes feel obliged to speak out against the few who bring their entire profession into disrepute. In this I include cases in which an entire local police force is corrupt. As far as I am concerned, the routine use of tasers in police work constitutes police brutality and torture. I feel strongly that use of tasers should be severely limited and closely monitored. Taser use is an alternative to shooting someone, not an alternative to actually doing your job as a policeman (or woman).

EDIT:
Deaths prompt calls for taser moratorium (ABC News, Australia)
This new article gives a few pieces of information that I wasn't aware of. Key points: 300 deaths by taser in USA and Canada, and 98% of people shocked by tasers were unarmed. Also, apparently tasers are being introduced in my country. They'd better be subject to strict regulations...

EDIT:
-The University of Florida campus police in the "don't tase me bro" incident declared to have acted appropriately - video [link]
-The Utah Highway Patrol has declared Trooper John Gardner's use of his taser (linked above) "lawful and appropriate" - [link] (I can't find a permanent link, so let me know when this one gets stale and I'll link a copy).
-Another motorist has been tased when pulled over for speeding. This time in Austin TX, and for not producing his license quickly enough - dashcam video [link]

Extra conclusion:
When I first posted this journal, I was prompted by the fear that this would get out of hand. I would now like to state unequivocally that it already is out of hand. We already have a death toll in the hundreds for North America alone, and incidents like those I've linked are not aberrations. The truly frightening thing is this: the police departments involved are releasing statements saying that these uses of a taser are appropriate. If taser use in these incidents falls within police regulations for taser use, then those regulations are insane and truly frightening.

Written by patty
At Nov 7, 2007, 12:43:42 AM

I've just had a very frustrating network problem, so I'm mostly writing this for the benefit of the next poor schmuck who has this problem and looks to Google for help.

I was tinkering with some settings on the Netgear router, trying to figure out why the device (which I use merely as a wireless access point on a network managed by my Billion 5102 ADSL modem/router) seemed to be blocking NTP traffic. Without warning, the wireless signal simply vanished (I was doing this tinkering over a wireless connection, silly me).

I went and looked at the wireless router, and the "Wireless AP" light on the front was off.

I connected a laptop to the router via Cat5, and went into the settings on the router. I went to 'Advanced -> Wireless Settings', and the checkbox for "Enable Wireless Router Radio" was greyed out (grayed out, for US types).

After hours of fruitless tinkering, some sleep and a few more hours of frustration, I found the solution buried deep in an advanced Google search.

-Go to "Basic Settings"
-Under the "Router MAC Address" heading, select the "Use Computer MAC Address" radio button.
-Click "Apply"

This, for reasons which are a mystery to me, turns the wireless functionality back on. Bad design, Netgear!

Incidentally, I did try the usual things first - rebooting the router, updating the firmware, and even restoring factory default settings. All to no avail - it stayed broken until I changed that MAC address.

Written by patty
At Nov 3, 2007, 1:26:25 PM

I'm currently rereading "I was just wondering", a book by Christian theologian Philip Yancey. I was a Christian when I first read this book (I think this copy was a baptism present), but now I'm reading it as an atheist. The book largely takes the form of a number of questions, and I find I have answers he apparently hasn't encountered. I intend to go through the book chapter by chapter, and answer all the questions here. Note: I mean no disrespect to Yancey; quite the contrary. It is precisely because I respect him that I am taking his questions seriously enough to answer them. Questions in italics are Yancey's.

Why are there so many alcoholics these days?
In short, some people can't handle reality. Alcohol is an easily-available escape, and the only socially acceptable non-prescription depressant that I can think of offhand (nicotine and caffeine are both stimulants). I propose that any apparent increase in alcoholism can be explained primarily by greater availability of alcohol and greater visibility of alcoholism. It is also possible that the inability to cope with the real world is more common now, but I'll avoid speculating on that.

Why don't they [alcoholics] just come to church instead of sequestering themselves in their own gatherings?
Silly question. When seeking comfort, we seek the familiar and understanding. A non-Christian alcoholic is unlikely to find either in a Christian church. I don't mean that a good Christian congregation wouldn't be kind to the sufferer (they might), but they are unlikely to understand what he's going through. Might as well ask why an alcoholic doesn't go to a synagogue or a mosque; to one who doesn't follow any of those religions, the only advantage Christianity has is ubiquity. Neither a priest nor a rabbi is required to be trained in dealing with alcoholism, and neither congregation is likely to have any particular expertise in the field.

Why do sinners feel so attracted to Jesus but so repulsed by the Church?
Jesus was a friend to sinners. The Church has throughout its existence committed uncountable atrocities against those whom it regarded as sinners.

Why do people with AIDS so often not come to church?
Because they fear that their congregations regard AIDS as the wages of sin, at a guess. This fear may or may not be correct in any specific case, but it's certainly well-founded in many societies. There is a very strong perception that AIDS is caused primarily or solely by homosexual sex acts, and most mainstream churches still insist that these acts are sinful.

Why did former Surgeon General Koop, an evangelical Christian, receive so much hate mail from other evangelical Christians?
Bluntly, some evangelical Christians are self-righteous enemies of humanity (in both senses of the word). Note: I do not say that this is true of all evangelical Christians, or even most. Of some, however, it is true. I feel I should mention at this point that I have been an evangelical Christian, and some of my closest friends still are. I am not attacking Christianity; rather, I am attacking the inhumane actions of some of those who presume to speak and act for Christ.

Why do virtually all instances of Church discipline involve sexual sins?
We are sexual creatures. Church dogma attempts to confine our sexuality to narrow channels supposedly laid down several thousand years ago*.  The Church's teachings are in conflict with our natural desires. Sometimes the desires overcome the teachings, and this is sexual sin. Sometimes the restrictions imposed by the teachings so frustrate the sex drive as to warp it, and this gives rise to what tend to be worse types of sexual sin. People, preachers and congregation alike, are interested in sexual sins; therefore, sexual sins tend to be sought out more diligently and denounced more stridently.
*To justify the use of 'supposedly' here, I mention the practice of masturbation; the Church has always preached against it (as far as I know), but I've never yet seen any Biblical backing for that prohibition. The story routinely mentioned is that of Onan (Genesis 38:8-10), which actually describes the withdrawal method of contraception; Onan's sin was disobedience of God's supposed command (of which I have so far failed to find any mention anywhere else in the Bible).

Why do I hear so few sermons on the sins of pride, greed, sloth and gluttony?
You go to a different church, Mr Yancey. In the two churches I regularly attended, I heard plenty of sermons on pride and greed. Sloth and gluttony weren't so much covered, but this might have had something to do with the demographics involved - primarily university students.

Would Christians support a national Prohibition movement against the major health hazard of obesity?
I'm afraid I can give no worthwhile answer to this question without knowing what would be prohibited. Without knowing that, the best I can offer is a guess: "No".

Why do so many hospitals have Christian-sounding names?
Originally, because they were founded (and run) by Christian groups. Thus the trend was established, and it was mostly followed for a long time. I note in passing that I have spent time (ie. at least a day or two at a time) in three different hospitals*. Not one had a remotely 'Christian-sounding' name. For that matter, I don't think I have ever so much as visited a hospital with a 'Christian-sounding' name. Evidently, this naming trend is not universal.
*Gisborne Bush Nursing Hospital (where I was born, and have returned once or twice); Royal Children's Hospital (where I spent a few weeks in 1991); Royal Melbourne Hospital (where I spent a week in 2005).

Why do they function like every other hospital?
Because they are attempting to fulfil the same role.

What would a truly Christian hospital look like?
Hopefully, a place to heal the sick. This is the purpose of a hospital. I once had my life saved in a hospital, by extraordinary surgical skill and excellent medical care; the idea of a hospital not dedicated to that same aim of healing the sick scares me. I have twice entered a hospital unconscious and seriously injured, once as a non-Christian and once as a Christian; the idea that the doctors would be concentrating on their God rather than on healing me is profoundly disturbing, as is the idea that my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) might have any bearing on the care I receive. Also, the idea of evangelising to a patient in such a weak and captive state is truly repugnant for a number of reasons. Taking all these things together, I fail to see any way in which a 'truly Christian hospital' should be different from any othe hospital.

Where did racial hatred come from?
Tribalism, and its attendant xenophobia. As we evolved into an intelligent species, we as individuals were members of tribes which were in competition with other tribes for limited resources. Xenophobia was in many (if not most) cases a necessary trait for survival. This obsolete hatred has since been perpetuated by groups which benefit or seek to benefit from it, not least the ancient Jews by means of their Bible and its insanely jealous God (since inherited and reinvented by the Christians). Incidentally, I regard miscegenation as one of the great hopes for humanity.

Where did races come from?
Natural selection took different paths - partly due to different environments, and partly due to chance.

Why didn't God make people all alike, like dandelion and hydrogen molecules?
I dispute the unavoidable premise in this question, and therefore can offer no meaningful answer.

Does God love Americans more than Iraqis and Libyans? Irish Protestants more than Irish Catholics?
I severely doubt it, even if He does exist (which I do not believe).

Where do political tyrants come from?
Since the dawn of humanity, there have always been people who wish to control everybody. Some of them happen to show up in the right place at the right time and gain power. As an obvious example: I suspect that Fred Phelps would, if given the absolute authority of a dictator, commit atrocities on a scale comparable to those committed by noted tyrants in history.

Why does God let them inflict such evil on the world? Why did God stay silent during the Holocaust?
Because He doesn't exist, in my opinion. Even when I believed in God, the best answer I had for these questions was "for some greater good that we neither know nor understand; we just have to trust that He knows what He's doing".

Written by patty
At Oct 28, 2007, 7:26:07 AM


Yes folks, EACoder is finally ready for release!

I've cleaned up the code, and I've sorted out the legal issues - I'm now releasing EACoder under the GPL.

This is kinda huge, to put it mildly. I've been wanting to do this for ages, but I had to wait until I had everything sorted out.

Links:
-EACoder v1.0
-EACoder v1.0 source (zipped).

Written by patty
At Oct 25, 2007, 10:21:39 AM


I'm working on a major rewrite of EACoder, and I've got the technical part mostly done. The major change implemented so far is that the image is no longer rendered to memory, so EACoder no longer uses significant memory. This makes a huge difference to the server if EACoder starts attracting more traffic. I expected this revision to be a little slower than the previous rendered-to-memory version, since disk writes are slower than memory writes. I've just done some benchmarking to check their relative performance...

Benchmark: Typewriter @ 800x600 (same as the DreamHost vs. Servage benchmarking)

EACoder v0.8
-15.14
-9.15
-10.51
-10.91
-11.61
-16.09
-9.35
-11.66
-11.65
Mean: 11.785556 seconds

EACoder v1.0
-9.52
-16.42
-8.69
-9.08
-9.04
-10.82
-9.03
-9.80
-9.38
Mean: 10.197778 seconds

The new version actually seems to be slightly faster. I did not expect that, but I'm happy.

By the way, the rest of the rewrite will involve cleaning up the code some more. I'm planning to publish the code when I roll out v1.0

Written by patty
At Sep 2, 2007, 8:06:40 AM


Original post:
I can't sleep, so I'm about to do some work on EACoder v0.8 beta. It did occur to me, though, that I hadn't said anything here about the rewrite from v0.6 to v0.7.

Prior to v0.7, EACoder used a system of slots as a crude multi-user setup. This involved writing user-entered code into the first available slot, executing it, writing the rendered image to the appropriate image slot and displaying it. This system has been scrapped.

Instead of writing code (user-entered code within a framework which deals with the donkey-work), EACoder now builds a string with much the same code and then executes that string. This doesn't make a huge difference to the end-user, but it's a major change technically. Also, it means that user-entered code never gets written to disk. This means less worry for me about getting hacked (unlikely anyway), but more importantly it means no worries for users about me pinching their code. With the slots system, it was possible for user-entered code to be left on my server's filesystem if something went wrong.

Also, as of v0.7 there are two EACoder-specific built-in functions: phold() and mod256(). Both functions currently perform integer truncation as well as their intended functions, which might change for 0.8.

Possible features for 0.8:
-Progress indicator
-Float-friendly phold() and mod256() functions
-Unlimited execution time
-Image size no longer restricted by memory
-Render count

Update:
EACoder v0.8 beta is now up at [link] - please note, [link] will still work but without the progress indicator.

Features for v0.8 beta so far:
-Float-friendly phold() and mod256() functions
-Progress indicator (currently counting 100 steps, but I'll restore user control over that as soon as I fix a logic error in it).

The progress indicator is the big feature, really. DreamHost disabled Apache2 mod_deflate for eacoder.pheddles.com and eabeta.pheddles.com for me, and it suddenly became very easy for me to add a progress meter (which I'd previously tried and failed to do).

Unlimited execution time turns out to be impossible whilever EACoder is on shared hosting at DreamHost, for good technical reasons. Such is life - I'll need either a virtual private server or some creative client-side and server-side scripting in order to allow large renders. For now, max_execution_time is the limiting factor for render size of non-trivial equart pieces (available memory can be the limiting factor for trivial pieces).

Image resolution is still limited by available memory. I might leave this alone until it becomes the limiting factor for serious equart renders.

Incidentally, yet more kudos to Dreamhost for tech support. These guys rock.

Written by patty
At Aug 27, 2007, 7:30:47 AM


I'm currently transferring my personal website from Servage to DreamHost, much as we recently transferred Storm from Servage to DreamHost. My EACoder web application is currently operational on both hosts, so I've used it for a little benchmarking. Storm's move from Servage to DreamHost was motivated by concerns about honesty and corporate responsibility rather than any technical concerns, but a technical comparison is still interesting to me. If you're not a geek, you might want to stop reading now. I will try to keep this comprehensible to non-geeks, though.

EACoder times its own execution and reports the results at the end of each render. This is the figure which I am using for this benchmark, $x in the line "Image rendered in {$x} seconds." This is purely a measure of execution time; it doesn't reflect any other factors such as bandwidth and latency. Geeks: The timing routine uses both time() and microtime().

I took two sets of measurements. There was only about a 10- or 15-minute gap between the two sets of measurements, but they differ significantly. I'm not sure why, so I'm just posting both sets. Each result is the time (in seconds) taken to render Typewriter at 800x600 pixels (the exact render which I've posted to Storm, incidentally). Again I stress that this is render time rather than pageload time.

Raw data:
Servage, first round: 52.93, 16.29, 72.50, 20.57, 40.37
DreamHost, first round: 8.93, 12.00, 8.41, 7.30, 12.68
Servage, second round: 25.39, 55.00, 15.89, 24.48, 28.21, 14.36, 14.65, 55.41, 20.29, 17.72
DreamHost, second round: 8.92, 7.29, 7.02, 7.20, 7.72, 6.81, 7.26, 8.73, 6.95, 8.41

Average (mean):
Servage round 1: 40.53
DreamHost round 1: 9.86
Servage round 2: 27.14
DreamHost round 2: 7.63
--
Servage, overall: 31.60
DreamHost, overall: 8.37

Conclusions:
While precision is severely limited by variability and opacity of assorted factors outside my control, these results are dramatic enough that some conclusions may safely be drawn. On average, DreamHost seems to compute roughly four times faster than Servage. Note that the DreamHosted instance is in fact sharing processor time with Storm itself, whereas the Servaged instance is sharing processor time only with a handful of low-traffic sites (the highest-trafficked being my somewhat-neglected personal website).

EACoder will shortly be available to the public in its new home. The URL pheddles.com/eacoder/ is unchanged, so EACoder users will probably only notice the difference by tracert or by noticing when render times suddenly drop by a factor of 4.

Geek out.

Written by patty
At Aug 3, 2007, 10:34:27 PM


I'm currently rereading "I was just wondering", a book by Christian theologian Philip Yancy. I was a Christian when I first read this book (I think this copy was a baptism present), but now I'm reading it as an atheist. The book largely takes the form of a number of questions, and I find I have answers he apparently hasn't encountered. I intend to go through the book chapter by chapter, and answer all the questions here. Note: I mean no disrespect to Yancy; quite the contrary. It is precisely because I respect him that I am taking his questions seriously enough to answer them. Questions in italics are Yancy's.

Why are there so many kinds of animals? Couldn't the world get along with, say, 300,000 species of beetles instead of 500,000? What good are they?
Human-caused extinctions aside, the diversity today is determined by the balance between creation and extinction of species. The world has at times managed with far fewer species, but the diversity always reestablishes itself; apparently lesser biodiversity is an unstable state. As to what good they are, what good to whom? For that matter, why should they be any use to anything other than themselves? They are useful to themselves and to each other in terms of survival, and there is no particular reason for them to be useful in any other way or to anyone else. Meaning is a human invention.

Why is it that the most beautiful creatures on earth are hidden away from all humans except those wearing elaborate SCUBA equipment? Who are they beautiful for?
That contention is just plain silly. Beauty is by definition a subjective concept, and there are plenty of beautiful creatures right where we can appreciate them.
The questions aren't much more sensible, really. The answer being fished for is "for God", but my answer is that they don't have to be beautiful for anyone in particular. They are what they are for their own reasons of survival, which may or may not make sense to us.

Why is almost all religious art realistic, whereas so much of God's creation - zebra, swallowtail butterfly, crystalline structure - excels at abstract design?
-Nature is by definition perfectly realistic.
-Nature is 'abstract' to our eyes for its own reasons of survival, largely to do with camouflage and sexual display (though deliberate warning appearance is also rather common).
-Very little religious art is realistic. Most religious art is figurative because its functions are best served by figurative art. I'll leave the 'functions of religious art' alone for now, but I will say that anyone who thinks religious art is realistic should think carefully about the level of symbolism used in the vast majority of religious art.

Why are dogs so much easier to train than cats? Why are African elephants almost impossible to train? Which does God take most pride in, a dog or a cat?
Dogs and (house)cats are essentially human creations. Dogs joined us in roles requiring obedience (notably as hunting aids), and were selected and trained accordingly (and have been in the intervening thousands of years). Cats entered in roles which required them merely to hunt on their own terms - there was no need for them to take orders from humans. They were therefore 'selected' (inasmuch as the term is relevant here) on criteria either irrelevant or antithetical to obedience. Also, it probably helped that they were worshipped for a while.
I don't know why African elephants are almost impossible to train. My question is, why would they be easy to train?
The last question rests on a premise I dispute, so I'll leave it alone.

Are human beings animals? Are they anything but animals? Why aren't human beings easier to train?
Yes, human beings are animals; at no point have we failed to meet the relevant criteria. Yes, we are more than animals; we have intelligence, if not always wisdom. We are not the only animal with intelligence, but we are (apparently) the only animal to have driven intelligence to such heights by means of a positive feedback loop between intelligence and extelligence (extelligence being roughly defined as society and culture).
Humans are sometimes difficult to train (to obedience) because we're intelligent enough to decide we don't want to obey, and foolish enough to dress simple childish contrariness up as rational objection.

Why are there dirty jokes? What makes the physiology of excretion and reproduction so funny anyhow?
Bluntly, we humans have been obsessed with sex as long as we've been human by any sensible definition of the term. Sex-based humour is indirectly caused by this, through the mind-boggling assortment of ways in which we have complicated sex.
Excretion is a little more difficult to explain, but I can make a reasonable attempt off the top of my head. Even animals tend to excrete away from their normal living areas, and over time this developed into our current obscene fascination with excretory functions (and associated humour).

As Walter Percy asks, "Why does man feel so sad in the 20th century? Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his own needs and making over the world for his own use?"
-Overall happiness of an individual seems surprisingly independent of circumstances. Overall, man is probably not noticeably happier or less happy now than at any other point in history. I'm not sure why this is, and I've never yet heard an explanation.
-Man's actual 'needs' are sometimes ignored and/or subverted by modern society's idea of success. This is not a recipe for general happiness.

Do gorillas and aardvarks go through a mid-life crisis?
Probably not, no. They don't have the complexity, either in themselves on in their lives.

Why is Ecclesiastes in the Bible? Was its author going through a mid-life crisis? What would a mid-life crisis look like in an ancient Hebrew king?
I can't answer the first without understanding pre-Christian Judaism in considerable detail. I can't answer the second without understanding ancient Hebrew society. Accordingly, I'll pass on both.

Why did Solomon, who showed such wisdom in writing proverbs, spend the last years of his life breaking all those proverbs?
-Because there's a big difference between theory and practice.
-Because he could.

Why is the Song of Solomon in the Bible? Why is the Song of Solomon, alone of all biblical books, interpreted allegorically when in fact the Bible gives no clue of any allegorical intent? How did a religion which includes a book like the Song of Solomon among its sacred writings get branded as an enemy of sex?
-I don't know why the Song of Solomon is in the Bible. Again, this would require greater understanding of ancient Judaism than I currently have.
-The second question makes a dubious claim; parts of Genesis, for example, are interpreted allegorically.
-Bluntly, Christianity as it is preached and practised (not one and the same btw) is often substantially different from what the holy texts actually say. In common with every other religion I've encountered, Christianity has tended to turn cultural norms into dogma, which is then clung to for centuries or even millenia.

Why is sex fun?
Sex is necessary for a number of functions, the most obvious of which is procreation. Since these functions are supremely important and some have significant and obvious downsides (just ask any mother about childbirth), it is biologically helpful (necessary, even) for sex to be highly pleasurable.

--
Whoever you are, whether or not we know each other well, feel free to dispute anything I'm saying here.

Written by patty
At Jul 31, 2007, 1:26:22 PM


I've got some challenging new equation art projects, and one of them has forced me (finally) to accept a significant redefinition of equation art from what I originally classified it as.

My current project is to produce a specific realistic image I have in mind. That's presenting me with considerable challenges, but I'm not here to talk about the intricacies of what granite actually looks like...

Reading yet again through my high school art-history textbook (my art teachers would be amazed), I had rather an ambitious idea...
I intend to use equation art to make at least one artwork recognisably belonging to each distinct art movement I come across (ideally, I'd also like to imitate specific artists within each movement). Arguably I've already covered a few (notably Op Art), and a few others should be almost trivial from a technical standpoint. Others, however, are going to be extremely challenging. Dali's surrealism promises to be a substantial challenge, for instance, as do da Vinci's classical realism and Flack's hyper-realism.

OK, now for the theory shift. I originally viewed equation art as a style, and have to some degree maintained this view for the past 3.5 years. At this point, I explicitly disavow the notion; equation art is not a style. It is a technique. A paradigm, if you will. It raises certain philosophical questions which I'll ignore for now, but the fact remains that equation art is defined by production rather than by product.

As a counterpoint to this, here's something jaw-dropping which I found buried way down in the results of a Google search recently... [link]

The astounding part is towards the end. Oh, and the file is a few meg. It seems to be the digital slideshow for one lecture in an art subject at a university in Israel. Guess I should go email the link to Richard Grantham, since I knew him a few years ago.

OK, enough rambling for now. Anyone who wants to learn more or give equation art a shot, let me know - I love teaching

Written by patty
At Jul 22, 2007, 2:02:11 AM


Oddly enough, at 23 I'm still figuring out my views on sex. An essay here seems a convenient way to get some thoughts straight.

NOTE: This is me trying to sort out what I personally think. Feel free to adopt some or all of my conclusions if parts of this make sense to you, but in no way should this be taken as an essay on what other people should and shouldn't do. Oh, and feel free to shred any of my points which need shredding - I really do welcome that testing of my ideas.

First, I have to mention the great sexual double-standard. I tend to refer to it as the 'slut/stud duality', which I assume is reasonably clear. Just so we're clear: I am totally opposed to that double-standard. I can see certain justifications for it in earlier times, but in the 21st century we have no excuse beyond inertia. Men and women should be judged by exactly the same standards in this area. As to what those standards should be, such is the purpose of this essay.

In earlier essays not posted here, I set out to construct an axiomatic ethics framework. So far I have only one axiom - try not to cause harm - upon which rests every worthwhile 'rule' I've ever come across. I shall now apply this axiom to the issue at hand.

The big question is, "Who does it hurt?" Not a rhetorical question, either - given enough thought, there is usually an answer to that question when applied to anything which is against accepted rules (especially laws). The trick, I've learned, is to do that thinking before breaking whatever rules. Ties in well with one of the better pieces of wisdom I've come across, "Rules are there so you think before you break them".

Being a lazy sort, I'll first deal with the (comparatively) simple cases: within marriage, outside an existing marriage, within an existing unmarried romance, outside an existing unmarried romance.

-Within marriage: I reject what mainstream Christianity seems to be saying (wife must always be available to husband), but I don't have an issue with what the Bible actually says - husband and wife shouldn't deprive each other except by mutual consent for a while. Despite this, I feel very strongly that either party has the absolute right to refuse at any time for any reason; not even within marriage does anyone ever 'owe' sex to anyone else. My general point here, though, is that within marriage there is no question whilever both parties want it. Simple. Whatever makes both parties happy in the long term is fine.

-Outside an existing marriage without permission: Absolutely wrong. No conditions or restrictions necessary here - it's betrayal, and we don't need to look far to see who is hurt. Note that this applies even if the wronged party never knows about the infidelity itself. The only exception I can think of offhand is between separation and the finalisation of divorce.

-Outside an existing marriage with permission: In this I include all group arrangements etc. In my experience, this does not work long-term. From what I've seen, it really does tend to end in tears. However, the same could be said about more traditional relationships. Complex and difficult to manage long-term, but that's the worst I'll say about it.

-Within an existing unmarried romance: This can be complicated by the ideas of either party. If either party strongly believes in 'no sex until marriage' or similar, then that belief is self-supporting for our purposes here; conflict with that belief would most likely poison the relationship and directly hurt one or both parties (directly) and ultimately both parties. If both partners want to have sex (with each other), then I see no problem and no restriction.

-Outside an existing unmarried romance: Same as outside an existing marriage in both cases, and for roughly the same reasons.

OK, now for singles...

Again, the underlying principle is "do no harm". Come to think, this essay might end up a little shorter than I intended - detailed examination of this area may be rendered superfluous by a few simple principles.

I don't intend to go into details here, but I have made my own mistakes in this area. I have matured significantly since then, though not as much as I might like.

-One-night stand / stranger: This strikes me as a bad thing, and always has. I think most people would be damaged by this in some way, though I'm working with limited information on this point. Given that the danger here is to the individual making the choice, I'll call this 'probably unwise but not wrong'.

-Friends with benefits: That is to say, a non-romance friendship with some sexual component. I've messed this up twice, so I'm somewhat wary of it. However, at this distance I can see what went wrong and (at least in theory) how to avoid it. Basically, the problem occurs if sex takes over and chokes the friendship. Whilever both parties care about each other more than they care about the sex, all is well.

Apart from hurting people, there is one point commonly raised in connection with sexual values: "it means less". What's generally not specified is this: to whom does it mean less? If you don't have a good answer to that question, the point can be ignored. If you do have an answer, it's probably a really good idea to examine what sex really does mean to you and whoever you're considering it with. Sex means many different things to different people, so I can't really offer anything universal here. Here's what I think, though:

To me, sex is (should be) an expression of love and a form of emotional intimacy. That is all.

Written by patty
At Jul 20, 2007, 8:20:16 AM

Stolen from [salvationforsanity]

1. Do you like animals?
Yes.

2. Have you ever met an online friend in person?
Yes.

3. Are you athletic?
I used to be. "Powerfully built man gone slightly to seed", to quote JK Rowling. Still got lotsa muscle, and I do intend to get fit again.

4. Are you: thin, fat, athletically built etc:
Stocky and muscular, plus some fat.

5. How much do you weigh?
100kg.

6. What's your height?
6'2

7. Shoe size?
12

8. Girls - are you tomboyish, girly, normal, etc?
N/A

*removes question 9*

10. How old are you?
23 two days ago.

11. When is your birthday?
July 18.

12. Do you like to receive giftart?
Actually, I tend to feel kinda awkward.

13. Are you sociable?
You betcha.

14. Do you have many friends?
I'd say so. I'm a fortunate man.

15. What's your race?
Anglo mutt, roughly speaking. British all-sorts. Just plain human, ultimately.

16. Do you like to talk on the phone?
Not really.

17. Are you single or taken?
Single.

18. Do you eat meat?
Yup.

19. Are you paranoid?
Nah, I'm a pretty laid-back person.

20. Do you read a lot?
Not as much as I used to, but still a fair bit.

21. Do you listen to music, what kind?
All kinds. There is good and bad music in almost every genre (I've yet to hear any decent death metal, for instance).

22. Do you play any instruments?
I learned clarinet from year 7 onwards, and taught myself trumpet in year 9. I can play most brass and woodwind instruments, but at best at a decent-amateur level. My 'instrument' is voice - I have no hesitation in calling myself professional-level as a singer.

23. How long have you been drawing (or photographing, or writing.)?
I started my first poetry journal when I was 16 or so, though I have a piece in my gallery here which predates that.

24. What's the meaning of life?
I believe I am here to help humanity in whatever ways I can.

25. If you were travelling in a vehicle at the speed of light and you turned your headlights on, would they do anything?
Given that the vehicle and I would have infinite mass, I'd say all bets are off

Written by patty
At Jul 5, 2007, 11:56:46 AM


I just took part in an impromptu-but-epic group discussion, mostly about discrimination of various kinds. In the course of the discussion, I noticed a few prejudices (whether harmful or not) which society has instilled in me.

The example which first made me think was when a guy I don't really know mentioned he'd been the victim of a racially-motivated attack (he ended up in hospital). The thing is, I didn't know his race - I still don't for sure. But my assumption was that he was a black man being beaten up by a gang of white racists. Then he told the story and it turned out that the racist thugs were Asian. Clearly, my assumption was incorrect.

The thing is, I have to wonder whether that's a valid assumption for me to have made. And, on reflection, I think it is (but with conditions).

The world around us far exceeds our capacity to observe (gather data) and understand (process data). We are flawed creatures of finite perception and intellect; at whatever level, we simply have to ignore the majority of the information around us. This is achieved by incomplete sensory input and by selective mental processing at the various levels (starting with physical discrimination in the retina and the eardrum, among other places).

The upshot of this is that we are constantly constructing mental models from incomplete information. The human brain is an excellent pattern-recognition machine; pattern-matching and extrapolation work together to provide the missing information. Loosely speaking, those patterns are prejudices (and prejudices are simply mental patterns in this sense). 'Prejudice' is a dirty word now, for much the same reasons as 'discrimination'; both are general terms tainted by subsets of their respective domains. Discrimination is absolutely essential to almost every aspect of life, and prejudice is likewise essential to normal functioning in the complex world which is, in turn, inextricably intertwined with the rise of human intelligence and extelligence, and all that goes with them.

The problem is that human society is by its very nature imperfect. That is, it often expresses (and even concentrates and amplifies) the evil inherent in humanity (evil being defined here as anti-social in the etymological sense). False patterns (the 'prejudices' which give the rest a bad name) are created and propagated to further the selfish interests of various groups within society.
-Racism is an obvious example, and the most visible example of that can be traced directly to slavery in the US - in order to justify holding a 'race' in slavery, it was necessary to classify them as somehow subhuman. Enter pseudo-science, and learned studies and reports showing that black people really were inferior to whites - acceptance of these was aided by primitive xenophobia, of course.
-The other obvious example is sexism, and its roots are ancient; sexism appears to predate history itself. I assume that sexism was originally enabled by the males' greater physical strength (on average) and the females' ties to child-bearing and -raising, though this is speculation. Once established, however, the inequality was perpetuated and bolstered by accepted 'wisdom'. This was finally shaken up by World War II, and we have definitely made significant progress since then.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand... My point here is that some prejudices are indeed harmful, but that most are not. And now we finally get to the conditions I mentioned earlier.

The condition on which prejudices may be beneficial is that they may be questioned and discarded if appropriate. As anyone who has ever argued with a true bigot will know, some prejudices in some people are utterly inaccessible to reason. On a smaller scale, specific instances of a prejudice (eg. that racially-motivated attacks in the USA are likely to be committed by whites against blacks) can simply be discarded in light of new evidence. Whilever we are not irrationally defensive of our prejudices, the previous example is no more serious than if I'd heard a story about a dog, imagined it to be a Labrador, and then learned that it was a chihuahua.

NB: Throughout this essay, I have used 'black' and 'white' as imprecise racial terms. This is intentional and entirely appropriate. If we aren't racist, why is it considered offensive to use what should be a perfectly neutral term? I'll accept that 'nigger' (from the Latin 'niger', simply meaning 'black') has been poisoned and is not appropriate here, but 'black' is the basic English word. As far as I'm concerned, words like 'coloured' are the offensive terms - they are euphemisms, and as such they imply very strongly that the concept itself is dirty. If I want to refer to a specific race, I will refer to it accordingly; failing that, I will continue to use general and non-euphemistic terms.

Discuss.

Written by patty
At Jun 11, 2007, 4:30:04 AM

This article, on first reading, was just light entertainment of the sort that FARK.com constantly dishes up. I've since thought a little more carefully, and spotted a flaw beyond one woman's silliness.

First point to note is that discrimination isn't always illegal - that's a very common misconception. What's illegal is discrimination on the basis of certain things (race, religion etc) when they are not relevant to the job. So a Christian church can refuse to employ a Hasidic Jew as a preacher, for instance. And a fashion house can indeed discriminate on the bases of age, gender and appearance when they hire models.

The catch here is "relevant to the job". The school in question would have been successfully sued (or just overruled) on the grounds of unfair discrimination if they had refused to employ Sariya Allen because of her religious beliefs. Now she is disciplined when her religious beliefs do in fact affect her work. She gets offended, quits and sues. My question is, what could the school possibly have done differently?

Either your religion interferes with your job, or it doesn't. If it does, you shouldn't be in that job in the first place. If it doesn't (and you therefore take the job), then there should be no grounds for such a complaint.

Some people might regard the whole thing as silly. It is, but it's also important. Quite apart from the precedent being set, this specific instance deals with a compensation claim for "about $100,000" and with the apparent mistreatment of a child. Think about it from a child's point of view, publicly told by an authority figure that her actions are 'cursed'.

NB: The issue appears to have been an ongoing one, and we don't know what other acts were punished as "obstructive conduct". Nevertheless, we do have enough information to draw certain worrying conclusions.

Written by patty
At Apr 27, 2007, 8:27:22 AM


NB: I wrote this to slow down and clarify my thought processes in pondering a matter which concerns me at present. I post it as an insight into my mind. That is all.

--

I guess it is a power, a gift. In general, it seems people tend to trust me. Love me, even. Not all, of course. Not even most. But some.

At this point I explicitly accept the responsibility that brings. With trust, and especially with love, comes the power to hurt. I won't say I'm incapable of deliberately hurting anyone, but I definitely try very hard to avoid it. At this stage, that principle is the sole axiom underlying my entire moral framework - that is to say, every single 'rule' I obey can be justified with reference to that principle. Of more concern than deliberate injury is my potential for hurting people unintentionally, even unwittingly. I am in some ways unperceptive, and even that which I perceive is not necessarily interpreted correctly. I am as yet merely a fledgling student in human nature, in humanity. Nothing really do decide there, except that I will try to think a little more (and possibly even notice more).

I'm curious to deduce the origins of this, my approach to the world (and its reflection of this approach, since that covers most of my experience with the world). I myself tend to trust and like people unless I have a particular reason not to. I don't generally hand strangers the power to hurt me too badly, but I must be described as a trusting soul. For that trusting nature, I credit my family above all else and all others. From my family (extending considerably beyond immediate family) I have learned that people in general really do respond to the way they are treated. Within this extended family I have excellent examples of both the positive approach and the negative, and I have no hesitation whatsoever in choosing the former. Not that it's a conscious choice as such, but my justification thereof is certainly a conscious one.

For my strong reluctance to hurt anyone I credit the extent to which I myself have been hurt (though I do credit my father for the physical nonviolence). Odd thing to combine with the preceding paragraph, but oddities are nothing new to me. I haven't the unthinking confidence (arrogance, even) to cause pain deliberately yet thoughtlessly. Nor have I the kind of gnawing self-doubt which underpins so much of the world's evil and suffering.

I strive toward an ideal which I know to be forever out of reach. Please forgive me if I fall further short than you expect.

Love,
Patty

Written by patty
At Apr 2, 2007, 2:51:11 PM


I've had a bit of a rant brewing for a few weeks now, so here it is. I'm tired and about to go to bed, so I do apologise if this turns out somewhat incoherent.

Some of you may be familiar with a woman called Dilana Smith, a contestant on Rockstar Supernova. She didn't win in the end, but her performances had a quality to them that really was riveting. Anyway, that's not really the point of this. All that's relevent from that is that she came across as the quintessential sexy rock chick.

Sometime between then and now, I was looking around on Youtube and found an earlier music video of hers. The song was a straight pop love song, quite a decent example of that style.

What made me think were some comments on it, pointing out that the clip was straight pop and therefore calling her a poser for her performances on Rockstar Supernova. I took it at face value at first, figured maybe she was just pretending. Then I thought a little more carefully.

I have two objections, but they're really just two sides of the one coin. The underlying concept is variation or range, and the different aspects are synchronic or diachronic - at the same time, or at different times (terms pinched from linguistics, by the way).

The people leaving these comments apparently believe that a 'real' rock musician has to somehow be dedicated exclusively and permanently to rock. It apparently didn't occur to them that she might have evolved as a musician and moved into rock, or that she might have been capable of performing well in more than one style. On the basis that she had once recorded a pop song, she was automatically judged to be a 'poser' as a rock musician.

As you might have guessed by now, I'm not in favour of pigeonholing a musician, restricting her (or him) to one style only. Both in music and in other areas, I'm rather sick of talented people spending years doing minor variations on the one thing they do well - as an artist working in a medium which makes that ridiculously easy, I fight very hard not to do so myself. Anyway, back to music.

Elvis Presley started out singing gospel and a bit of country, and gradually moved into rock. Does anyone want to call him a poser? Louis Armstrong, great jazz musician, played a country music session with Jimmie Rodgers in 1930 and another with Johnny Cash in 1970. Poser? I don't think so.

I've probably made that point already, but there's one example I can't leave out. Most people reading this probably know Bobby McFerrin for his Grammy-winning 1988 pop hit "Don't Worry Be Happy" (1988, Song of the year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, male, Record of the year), and nothing else. It might surprise you to know that he has won at least 8 Grammy awards, including 5 for jazz performances. It might also surprise you to know that he regularly performs with major orchestras, singing largely classical repertoire (particularly Bach).

There's a lot of utter nonsense spoken about music. Some is spoken by musicians, but much more by those who make money from musicians - agents, producers, advertisers, retailers etc. They go on about 'the real thing' and 'star quality' and other such nonsense, and they're not talking about music. They're talking about image and presentation, and that's pretty much it. Ever notice how very few of the really highly-paid musicians are physically unattractive? Oh well, that's another rant for another day.

My point is that music should be judged (and enjoyed) as music. Let's forget the peripheral hype - and the scandals and gossip, for that matter - and get back to the music.

I'd also like to say, lay off on dismissing or insulting musical styles you don't like. I personally dislike most rap music, for instance, but I don't deny that it is (or at least can be) an art form as valid as any other style of music. I personally like a lot of classical music, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of lousy classical music out there. I've found music ranging from excellent to appalling in every (broad) style I've encountered - in general, no style precludes or ensures good music (and no one can define it, for that matter).

I think that's about it, really. Respect the music, people - some of it will outlive all of us.

Written by patty
At Mar 29, 2007, 11:45:21 PM

OK, here's the current list of styles for my next album. They're classified as "grounded" or "ungrounded", depending on whether I have a source (typically an online radio stream) in which to immerse myself for a while to figure the style out properly. If you know of a good (legal) source for any of the ungrounded styles (or for one of the already-grounded styles, for that matter), please let me know. Anyways, here's the list as it currently stands:

Grounded:
-Dance
-Rock
-Country
-80s
-Alt rock
-Ambient
-Swing
-Classical
-Jazz
-Salsa
-New Age
-Reggae
-Vocal trance
-Oldies (60s, 70s, 80s)
-Pop
-Punk
-Barbershop
-Bluegrass
-Rap/HipHop
-Opera
-Blues
-Ska

Ungrounded

-Folk
-Emo
-Musical-style (eg Gilbert & Sullivan)
-Cabaret
-Lounge
-Madrigal
-Melodic metal
+Celtic

Written by patty
At Mar 29, 2007, 6:32:47 AM

I've just had rather an ambitious idea for my next album. The idea is to record one song for each distinct musical style I can think of (or have suggested to me). Yes, this might be rather more than will fit on one audio CD.

I'll probably write nearly all the songs myself, if only to avoid copyright concerns and comparisons with prior performances. The most likely exception to this is Allegri's "Miserere" - I've wanted to do it for a long time now, and it stands in my mind as the ideal choral work in that tradition.

The list so far:
-Classical in the broader sense (possibly covered by the Miserere, but I might get more specific)
-Country
-Folk (might be a few)
-Rock (again, possibly a few)
-Pop (like, bubblegum pop)
-Bluegrass (maybe - it could be too hard)
-Barbershop (I may not yet be good enough to do this properly by myself)
-Hip-hop (kinda new to me, so I may not be able to do it credibly)
-Rap (so foreign to me that I wouldn't consider it, except that I've already written the song)
-Emo (not just taking the piss like "I Must Be Emo") ("Depth"? - song I just wrote that might fit)
-Vocal trance (could be fun)
-Archetypal opera (possibly a Sop/Bar duet or more)
-Musical (a la Gilbert & Sullivan)
-Cabaret (brassy and all)
-Lounge
-Jazz (EDIT: definitely include scat)
-Blues

+Melodic metal (no death metal vocals, but speed/melodic metal has possibilities)
+Reggae
+Punk
+Ska





Original ending to this entry
OK, that's all off the top of my head in the last few minutes. I've almost certainly missed things that should be there, and I've probably got a few that are a little too close to each other. Suggestions?

In case anyone's wondering - yes, I will be singing every voice part in every song. I'll probably also be doing all the instrumentation, though I might get a certain talented friend to do the mixing for me (and possibly the instrumentation on the vocal trance, since that's his home turf and not mine). I don't expect this album to be finished in the next few months - honestly, I'll be quite surprised if I finish it within a year.

OK, I'm off to bed now. Let me know what you think, peoples

Written by patty
At Jan 6, 2007, 7:15:59 AM


For almost as long as I've been doing equation art, I've wanted an application to do the real donkey work for me - opening and closing loops, handling image output, that kinda thing. It's an obvious idea, to the extent that many people have simply assumed that such a thing existed and that I was using it.

In the last week or so, I've finally written it as a web application. I now think it's ready to be made public, so here it is.

System Requirements
Actually, there really aren't any significant system requirements. If you can read this journal, you can use EACoder.

Notes:

-This software may still be somewhat buggy, especially when it comes to handling many users at once (which I haven't been able to test properly).

-Bug reports and suggestions are welcome

-For security reasons, most of the PHP language is disallowed (either forbidden or unrecognised, depending on technical details). I think I've allowed all the functions people are going to have legitimate need for, but do let me know if you want to use a function which is currently unrecognised.

-Resolution is limited to triple-digit dimensions, to save processing and bandwidth on the server. I don't plan to relax those limits, but I do have plans for a desktop version for high-res renders. UPDATE: Limit relaxed to 4 digits, meaning it's no longer the limiting factor. The limiting factor now is the server's 30-second execution limit.

-If your code has syntax errors, that's your problem. I plan to add a feature or two to help debugging, but I can't debug everyone's code. Sorry.

-I don't keep logs of activity on EACoder. By the time you see your image, your code has been deleted from the server. Even if something goes wrong and the code deletion function doesn't run, code gets deleted after 10 minutes without being changed.

-I do plan to publish my code, but not until a few friends of mine check for security holes.

-Images created with EACoder are entirely the intellectual property of whoever created the maths. Users are free to do whatever they like with their images, including making money from them.

Written by patty
At Dec 28, 2006, 12:35:56 AM

Introduction
I've been corresponding via email with a guy called Bill Baker, who's one of the very few equation artists active right now. Since he's now joined Storm, the equart-related portions of that exchange will now continue here. It'll mean we can discuss it in smaller chunks (the emails got very long), and it'll also mean that other people can join in. This is the intention. We hereby extend an open invitation to anyone who wants to join in our discussions here: feel free to do so.

Bill, I'm going to answer all the equart points here. I suggest you post a separate comment here for each, so that each point we're discussing becomes a comment exchange. As a bonus, comment exchanges can (and do) fork

Body
I do apologise if any of this is unclear - I'll edit somewhat for clarity, but I can't provide the full context of a thesis-length correspondence.

I've been thinking that when I have time to spend (soon, I hope), I'm going to try starting with basic equations in my own technique (the 3-equation technique) to see if I can develop an understanding and maybe a library of basic images derived from basic equations. Speaking of the 3-equation technique... is that even "equation art"? It's so ironic that I completely misunderstood what you were describing until I'd already started off on my own "mis-directed" path, especially since I'm so taken with the results. I knew somehow that my images were different from yours and Rebecca's, but I just assumed I was using very different equations somehow, rather than just doing it "wrong".
The library idea is probably pretty close to what every serious equation artist (all 3 or so of us?) builds up in his/her head - the understanding of what functions correspond to what visual forms and effects.
The 3-equation technique is equation art, no question. In fact, that's how I did my first equation art. Technically it's equivalent to the one-equation technique, since the three equations can be condensed into one. Not practical, but possible. Your three-equation stuff is actually easier to represent in a single equation than my one-equation stuff, anyway, and the only true one-equation work is monochrome.
You're not doing it 'wrong' (the worst you could have done is create cool stuff that wasn't equart, anyway). You've taken equation art in a different direction, which is exactly what I want you to do. I'm arrogant enough to define what is and isn't equation art, but I'm not arrogant enough (or silly enough) to demand that everyone use the exact same techniques I use.

It's great to see that you're starting to write a tutorial as well. I can't understand why equart hasn't caught on yet, but your essays and the code sample should help. If I might suggest one improvement, it would be that you also include a pseudo-code sample illustrating only the essentials of the qbx code sample, which would eliminate some of the possible language-specific confusions (though I'm not sure you can get much simpler than "...loop through all the pixels, apply the maths to each one, and output the results in some way as an image.")
I think I'll throw this suggestion open. Would this be helpful, people in general?

>>...your revelation about the prime factors technique is spot-on. If there is no (or too tenuous a) connection between the different colour values, the piece will be incoherent. The idea is to mix RGB to make a palette and paint with that, not to have 3 independent images overlaid.
[...]
Oh... but I *do* want that! Not only does it increase the complexity of the finished image, but
rather than being "overlaid", my sense is that the result is combinatorial, and greater than the
sum of its parts (though I'll have to pursue some basic equations in the tri-equation technique, as I mentioned, to see what's *really* happening). Unlike what you've been doing, I have absolutely no control over the colors, except as an inadvertent result of the code->view feedback->re-code cycle we discussed previously. I haven't been disappointed though.
That's interesting - you might want to talk to Bec about that, since she always favoured that approach. That technique is difficult to do well, much more so than my super-paletted technique. If you can design the functions to harmonise visually, that's pretty cool
I do think control over colour is a good thing to have, though. That's the key to controlling the mood of a piece, I feel - look what happened when I turned "The Office" blue-grey, for instance. Ah well, it's up to you. And there's always the question of how relevant my thoughts are to techniques I'm not familiar with...

I definitely think my tendency is to select for complexity and non-repetitiveness, especially in the animations. I know that when I'm working on one, I'm always trying to avoid visual boredom, but I've come to realize over time that I must have a low tolerance visually for slow or repetitive artwork in comparison to others who do similar animations
I tend to prefer less 'cluttered' compositions, but that's no more than a personal preference on my part. I do tend to avoid repetition, but reflection and symmetry are powerful tools in achieving compositional balance (if that's appropriate for the piece in question, of course).

...do you have any links to the half-dozen others you mentioned who have dabbled in the medium? I'd be especially interested to learn more about the school teacher's program, and what the kids were able to come up with, but searching on the woman's name from the wikipedia site led nowhere.
Righty-o, here's the list as far as I know. Order is roughly chronological.
Algorists
Since equation art is simply a type of algorithm art, some of the work done by the algorists qualifies as equation art. I can't remember specific examples offhand, but the search is open for anyone who's curious.
Andrew McCann
McCann created two pure equation art pieces, RSA xor and RSA and, early in 2002. These pieces predate the term 'equation art' by nearly two years. The pseudo-code he gives is pretty much what you wanted me to give.
Me
Well, yeah. I coined the term, and I've developed the form a lot.
Patrick Carroll
Worked with me briefly, as we extended equation art to animation/video. Offhand, I don't recall that he worked much in classic equart - I'd check, but his dA account has been banned. No links anymore, since his dA account was all I knew about.
Richard Grantham
A guy I had a few classes with at uni. Bright guy - he coded this from scratch in fragments of a single (computer) lab class.
Rebecca Skinner (aka karpie)
Took me a while to get her to try it, but she's since developed equation art significantly. She wrote the initial (buggy) C implementation, and she wrote the only non-buggy C implementation that I'm aware of (my attempt died buggy). I think she's got her Python implementation working now, too. I won't even try to list the other contributions she's made - suffice to say, she's the person I ask when I need advice. As well as her Storm account, check out her personal site
Jennifer Pinyan
With my help, she incorporated a simplified and computer-free form of equation art into "a math curriculum for striving students in the Higher Achievement program, based in the Washington DC area of the USA." I don't think she's done anything with it beyond that, but I'm still pretty excited that equation art is being used for something like this. This also serves as a reminder that equation art doesn't have to be done on computer - the kids draw on graph paper with coloured pencils, and do the calculations by hand. I don't have any links to her, I'm afraid - I don't think she actually has a web presence as such.
Bill Baker
Yeah, you probably know yourself. For the benefit of anyone else reading this, you're an old-school algorist who came across equation art fairly recently and started coding again after a long break. Is that a fair summary? Storm account is here, personal site (skipping intro to avoid confusing newbs) is here.

do you, by chance, have images of the entire alphabet? I was thinking that a grid of the entire alphabet in one image (even if done via cut and paste assembly rather than strictly by equations), would be very interesting.
Actually, I did some work on that a while ago. I'll upload some examples as scraps, and you can see what you think. Cut and paste would be a bit of a waste of time, though - it's very easy to do such layout with pure equation art. Come to think of it, maybe I should have put letters on the sides of those cubes I was making a while ago...

I'd have to really sit down and think about how to create an alphabet algorithmically. Well, straight lines and diagonals wouldn't be so hard, I guess, but curves would be difficult. Have you figured them out yet?
I tried, got a fair way and then got bored/distracted and stopped. The results didn't look that impressive to me, but I'll let you judge that for yourself.

I'm not clear on what you mean by a "split function". "Split" as far as different algorithms for different texure areas?
Split functions in equation art simply means applying different functions to different areas. I don't have any examples on Storm at the moment, but cor, Hyper Cube and Spotlight are useful examples from my personal site.

>>Equation art is like a functional programming language like Haskell (even though both are
actually implemented with imperative code). It works merely by defining X in terms of Y, and
letting something at a lower level do the actual work. Algorithmic art is like an imperative
programming language - C, Fortran, BASIC, Java, javascript, PHP - pretty much all the languages in common use.


Is "imperative" the equivalent of "procedural" (which is the term I'm familiar with, to differentiate from  object-oriented)? Java, btw, is an object-oriented language, though it's accomodating to hackers like me, who learned the bad habits of thinking procedurally before being exposed to oop. Real graphical oop java programs are considerably slower and larger than what I do, and what I've seen in various java graphics tutorials online, and of cours