Everything2 New Writeups

Science Has No Morals (idea)

2009-11-29T23:37:19Z

Science itself may be amoral, but various social sciences involve the study or analysis of moral systems, from political science to economics to comparative religious studies.

Science also has something to say about contemporary morality as the result of the evolution of cooperation. By cooperation, I don't merely mean negotiation or compromise. I think that implies that the result of cooperation is ultimately not as good as you would like, if you didn't have to do it. In many cases, I would say that's not true at all.

For example, say there were two people on opposite sides of an island, each building their own house. So each of them climbs on ladders, by themselves, outside each of the houses, doing various things. The problem is that by working alone, they risk injury - the ladder may slip without anyone holding it. They also have nobody to hand them tools when they need it, etc etc.

If they worked together to build the houses (ie. cooperation),…

Beelzetruck (essay)

2009-11-29T22:41:59Z

There's a guy in my neighborhood who owns a Dodge Ram. It's a horrendously loud Dodge Ram. The racket it makes could put Manowar's loudest-ever concert to shame; turning the ignition on is like dropping a two-tonne weight on the world's largest whoopee cushion. And this is all because the stupid thing has no muffler.

What do mufflers even cost? Certainly no more than US$100. I mean, you just buy a muffler, have it installed, and suddenly you're not driving the carnival machine from hell anymore. Simple as that. But no, every morning, I, along with the rest of the subdivision, must be subjected to the amplified sound of a thousand people breaking wind until somebody has the sense to complain. (Nobody has thus far, to the extent of my knowledge.)

What motivates this neighbor of mine to drive a machine that sounds like it runs on steroid-laced bean burritos? Surely, to uncover the answer to this riddle is to uncover the answer to the enigmas that motivate evil and cruelty,…

risk reversal (thing)

2009-11-29T22:41:54Z

Introduction

A risk reversal is a combination of options. As such, a risk reversal is an example of an option strategy. In this writeup, we will see how a risk reversal is built, what the potential profit and risks are. This writeup assumes the reader is familiar with what an option is.

How to build a risk reversal

A risk reversal consists of two options with the same time to expiry on the same underlying. The first option is a short out the money call, and the second is a long out the money put. This means that the strike of the put is lower than the call. Normally, the strikes of the risk reversal are both equally far from the current price of the underlying. This strategy has the following payoff at expiration

Below the strike of the put: The call is worthless, and the long in the money put has a value of 1 for each 1 the underlying is below the the strike.
Above the

…

Science Has No Morals (essay)

2009-11-29T22:16:15Z

After watching yet another theological debate where the participants cover old ground, this one a two hour epic from Mexico, I've noticed a few points rear their heads again, and I'd like to discuss one in particular: the idea that science must not replace religion because it doesn't tell people what morals they should have.

It's true that science offers no moral compass. It tells us how the universe works and how the things in it work, and it tells us why they work that way. It doesn't suggest how anything ought to work in an ideal world. It merely illuminates how things do work in the real world.

Most of the time, this is fine. It's both fun and useful to find out things like the size, shape and age of our humble planet, or where all the different species came from. No morals would be expected here.

The apparent problem has come about…

Oddballs (poetry)

2009-11-29T22:08:21Z

Like scalpels and tweezers
Go chainsaws and freezers
Amirite?

Clearly I am a terrorist
Unless there's something you've all missed
As Maxwell Smart would say:
If only he had used his talents
To work for the forces of niceness and goodness
Instead of the forces of rottenness and evil

One of the good guys
I've always been
Though it may not be obv'ous
Unless you have seen
I am a right
Peaceable guy
Really
Ninja and scout
Pyro and spy
Nearly

You couldn't be blamed
Thinking I'm insane
"Look lady
The way I am
Is the way I am
If I scare people
It gives me room"

Life is crazy
This whole world is
Some people are odd
But they do the job
Some fear me
'Cos they don't see
The hundreds of nut-cases
Cov'ring their faces
With secret…

crawl space (poetry)

2009-11-29T21:57:38Z

Dusty, musty smell
Cosy two feet high
A wall behind me
With darkness stretching
In three directions
Crawled on one foot squares
Of particle board

Looked the place over
Torch strapped to my head
A quick inspection
Revealed a large pipe
Ran alongside me
Sewage ran through it
Tied beneath, CAT5
And optic fibre
Sprinkler pipe ahead

I'm in ur ceiling
Scouting another
Abandoned crawl space

Dedicated to raincomplex, keep finding new places.

misery loves company (poetry)

2009-11-29T21:21:29Z

Some of us circle aimlessly like moths,
Buzzing bewildered around a light:
We're bound so valiantly for the moon,
But smash ourselves senseless each and every night.

Some of us are like crows perched on a wire,
Watching the world pass by down below:
Birds of a feather, we flock together,
Because it sure beats being alone.

megapixel (idea)

2009-11-29T21:09:56Z

A megapixel is a unit of measurement for the resolution of digital cameras. Higher megapixel counts are the primary marketing indicator of a higher-quality digital camera. One megapixel is equal to one million pixels. This is about 25% better than 1024x768, a popular screen resolution for computer displays. The ever-increasing resolution on consumer digital cameras is primarily driven by small and smaller charged coupled device arrays getting smaller and cheaper to produce.

Today's average digital cameras typically boast a resolution of over 10 megapixels and can cost under US$150. This is enormously more resolution than the average family vacation photographer needs, and was just a few years ago only available in high-end professional digital cameras. A 1 MP camera easily has enough resolution to display pictures on a computer, the primary advantage to higher resolutions is for printing them. I find that as a rule of thumb, for each megapixel of resolution,…

Google Wave (thing)

2009-11-29T21:05:24Z

Google Wave is Google's attempt to blast every other communication framework out there into the dust. Will it be that successful? I doubt it, but it's still gonna be making waves (ha ha pun) for several years.

If you don't feel like watching the intensely long video that Google recorded when it debuted the software at its I/O conference back in May of 2009, you're in luck. I'm gonna describe Wave to you, though it will probably be a little strange.

Google Wave is the crossbreed of email, instant messaging, wiki, and forums. And that definition itself is probably glossing over half a dozen features that don't come from any of those four technologies. It aimed to combine the best elements of each, and in my opinion, it has. As it is (I'm looking just at the invite-only preview now), there are a lot of rough patches on the software, but it has delivered admirably on it core functionality.

Google Wave is,…

Birth of a Lizard (idea)

2009-11-29T20:52:35Z

In every spare moment, you have been aching to know the origin story of Lizardinlaw. I know this. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Oh. That's the Shadow, not me.

My little sister was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after getting engaged, apparently publicly online, to some "noder" Brit. He had flown over to California, she had flown to England and they jumped over a damn broom. They both wrote on some weird fucking ass writing site called E2 and that is where they met.

My sister called me after her MRI. "Katy, I saw the films. One side looks like white netting and the other doesn't have any! I'll have to have a mastectomy, won't I?"

"Yes. If they look that different, yes." I am a family practice doctor. I don't read breast MRIs either. But if they look that different, yes, bad.

The British noder was Wertperch, aka Kevin. He dropped everything and…

Heartbreak (thing)

2009-11-29T20:18:52Z

Above, it says that the world is divided into those who have experienced heartbreak and those who have not. For those of you lucky or unlucky to not have experienced heartbreak, I offer you an important warning: "heartbreak" is not a metaphor. "Heartbreak" is not your mind's way of trying to parse and interpret your feelings, or to explain them using poetry. Heartbreak, (and heartbreak can be caused by a number of things, ill-fortune at romantic love being just one of them) is an immediate feeling in the chest. The only thing inaccurate about the metaphor is that (at least for me), I never feel it as a sharp, tearing pain as "break" might suggest. Its more like a dull aching emptiness somewhat akin to getting kicked in the stomach. Only less fun.

money tree (poetry)

2009-11-29T19:07:08Z

It's obvious to see, I'm a money tree
My kids flock by to pick on me
They don't care, until I'm quite bare
Kids grab my leaves and flee

I sit and stare, in my Lay-z-boy lair
The kids won't approach on a dare
Now that I'm free of all my money
I can get some rest, which is rare.

Slimming the Fat Controller: Good MVC Design (how-to)

2009-11-29T18:13:13Z

I once read somewhere that, as a general rule of thumb, the correct way to use an MVC framework is to make sure the models and views are at least as big as the controllers. This is very good advice.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I started out writing projects in CakePHP, I wasn't sure where to put a lot of code and, when in doubt, I put it all in the controllers. After a while, I realised there was a much better way of working: putting pretty much all the code that deals with the database in the models, and pretty much all the code that deals with the user interface in the views, leaving the controllers with just the overall logic of the page to deal with.

Let's look at a concrete example. I worked on a project where people bought products and subscribed to magazines. When I was making the product buying section of the website, I needed to find out if the person who was logged in had to…

iPhone 3G (review)

2009-11-29T17:47:49Z

In September of 2007, I reviewed Apple's iPhone classic. Although it was a beautiful piece of electronics by any standard, it didn't have the expansive software library I'd come to rely on in my Palm Treo. It was with a heavy heart that I returned it to AT&T and went back to my loyal Swiss Army Knife.

Come July of 2008, I tried again with Apple's new iPhone 3G. The 3G has a number of upgrades over the classic version, most importantly the iTunes App Store. It was a whole new experience. The iPhone 3G took everything that was great about the original (covered in my original review, so I won't repeat them here), patched up a few oversights, and fixed almost everything that was lacking. When version 3.0 of the software was released, the iPhone could even finally copy and paste! This feature was long overdue. The iPhone proved itself to be every bit the workhorse my Palm Treo was, but sleeker, faster, and, yes I'll…

pidgin (thing)

2009-11-29T16:06:40Z

Pidgin is an open-source instant messaging client. At the time of writing, it is in version 2.6.2 and is one of the most popular cross-platform, cross-network instant messaging applications.

Pidgin was originally called GAIM, however as a result of a trademark violation claim from AOL, the project renamed itself Pidgin and changed the name of its base library from libgaim to libpurple. The GAIM acronym, which stood for Gtk + AIM, had become somewhat obsolete already, as GAIM supported many other instant messaging networks, so the name change was not especially resisted.

…

Andromeda (thing)

2009-11-29T15:26:35Z

Andromeda was a science fiction TV show based upon leftover material from Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. It ran on American and Canadian television networks from October 2000 to May 2005.

Andromeda followed the Systems Commonwealth High Guard warship Andromeda Ascendant and its captain, Dylan Hunt, as Hunt attempted to revive the Commonwealth from its destruction 300 years previously in order to defend its old territories from invasion by the Magog.

Characters

Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo) - Captain of the Andromeda Ascendant and the show's main protagonist.
Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder) - Captain of the Eureka Maru and first officer of the Andromeda Ascendant.
Tyr Anasazi (Keith Hamilton Cobb) - A Nietzschean mercenary who serves as Weapons Officer aboard the Andromeda Ascendant. (Seasons 1-4)
Seamus Harper (

…

and the voice of someone now mute (person)

2009-11-29T15:14:31Z

I enter the silence of the room, a silence that vibrates in my ears. It almost sounds like it's spelling out your name, letter by letter, floating past the middle of it, stroking the a. That's the tone that inclines the change of your name, the tone I can either pressure or soften, sharpen or smooth out. I have the inkling of a feeling that indicates that I might one day be able to do that. Maybe then, once your letters are smoothened into a slab of rock, will I not fade in front of you? Will I not fall, crumble like so many times before? Only this once, touch your name with my hand, hold your name to my heart, in silence. Where there will be no words spoken and no bodily movements, no feet walking away. And won't they say; should it not fill me with dread? Should it not be…

breaking the curse (personal)

2009-11-29T14:18:08Z

We'd been fighting.

He wanted to call off the engagement; I was fighting for it. Surrender no ground, dig my heels in, going from compliant and worshipful to tenacious and fiery in the defense of something that did me no good. Our friends mouthed promises not to take sides. Meanwhile, they did, lining up on both sides, swearing off conflict in favor of whispering behind both of our backs. Hooray for Minnesota Nice.

It seemed unnatural, out of the blue. So when I found the bucket of ashes with the cross dressed in children's clothes in the locked closet of in the basement of the rental house, when I got an explanation for the strange nightmares I'd been having, I jumped in with both eyes wide open, circling in to find the strange symbols that were everywhere, the little crosses, the strange runes, the gaping cracks in the floor and walls despite numerous (recent) mud jobs. At twenty, I wanted an explanation badly enough I could taste it.

Surely he…

Leo Tolstoy (person)

2009-11-29T10:50:08Z

(Any info without citation comes from The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, Oxford University Press, Oxford, Great Britain, 1998. For other sources, see end of writeup.)

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy: the author of War and Peace, Anna Kerénina, and The Death of Iván Illých. Leo Tolstoy's work is known for putting the fundaments of human nature onstage; making the big abstracts--philosophy, death, sociology, religion--a matter of character. It might be said that he was Modern before Modernism came along. His best fiction (most notably those mentioned above) strove to withhold moral judgment and instead allow the realistic action of his characters to speak to universal issues. In 1881, he had a Christian rebirth, and later writings tended to be Christian tales or political pamphlets that took a moralistic stance. For all of his adult life,…

Till The Morning Comes (review)

2009-11-29T10:18:28Z

"Till The Morning Comes" is a song by Neil Young on the seminal After the Gold Rush album. It ends the first side of the album. It is a very short song, around a minute in length, and seems almost to be an afterthought, as the song fades away as the first side of the album comes to an end. The lyrics are also very simple:

I'm gonna give you till the morning comes Till the morning comes, till the morning comes. I'm only waiting till the morning comes Till the morning comes, till the morning comes.

And those are the lyrics in their entirety.

Neil Young was known as one of the more cerebral rock musicians, and many of his lyrics were somehow socially meaningful, or at least poetic and evocative. Or sometimes mysterious. But this song is exactly what it sounds like: a simple plaintive message, that doesn't say much, but manages to capture a mood very very well. This song was written in the days before every telephone had a little clock on it; but…

Mission Bay (place)

2009-11-29T09:33:22Z

Mission Bay is the most commercialised of Auckland's seafront bays. Between the CBD and Kaimanawa Beach/St Heliers, it boasts the remains of an old Mission House complex, (hence the name, obviously) a fountain, a playground, a weekly Arts and Crafts market and Bastion Point which is surrounded by gardens, and contains a memorial to Michael Joseph Savage, one of the most prominent of the country's past leaders, and and commands a great view across the Hauraki Gulf to Rangitoto Island. There are also numerous cafes where you can sit and watch the energetic types run past. There are rollerblades and kayaks for hire locally, so you can marvel or snicker at the hirers, too, depending on their skill level. It's a pleasant place to while away a sunny Sunday morning.

The Sonnets versus Venus and Adonis (essay)

2009-11-29T08:50:19Z

Are the sonnets the key that Shakespeare used to 'unlock his heart'? Is Venus and Adonis really 'utterly aloof' from his own feelings? Are these works really polar opposites?

At first glance, the two comments above, by Wordsworth and Coleridge respectively, appear to come from the school of the blindingly obvious; that establishment which brings us studies that show that insomniacs are generally more tired during the day than those who get a full eight hours sleep. The sonnets are poems of love, we might argue, and Venus and Adonis is a narrative work, – about love, certainly, but springing from the brain, not the heart. These two different genres, we would probably continue, are in themselves completely different and therefore justify completely different approaches: they may even demand them. But the school of the blindingly obvious may not always teach the right lessons, and conventional…

Jonah (poetry)

2009-11-29T07:49:54Z

You are pragmatic:
you understand the nature
of inevitability and don't struggle
against its burdens. And, so,
you let yourself sink
without flailing, out of the daylight
slide down, under, below,
along the glossy gullet
that leads into the roaring
belly of the leviathan.

Others, each responding to the impetus
of their own necessity, are caught
as you are. They shiver,
sweat and wheeze in the noxious air
that fills the rolling cavity.
Their faces, pale, dark, olive, tan,
stretch away from you like strung pearls
dangling into the distance
far beyond
the limits of your vision.

While one or another may curse
aloud as they stumble, unbalanced
by some abrupt lurch or twist,
nobody converses. Eyes slip away,
gliding off importunate glances
like slick weed off scales. They know
as you know, these others:
you are not companions; though
…

seduced by sky (poetry)

2009-11-29T07:45:48Z

We're supposed, I suppose, when we look to the stars
to reflect and to contemplate:
how very far it is, even to Mars,
how the space of ... well, space, is so great.

We're supposed to be awed by the millions of lights,
and to ponder the thousands of years
they've been shining like sails on the dark sea of night
till the universe washed them up here.

We're supposed, I believe, to feel wonder and all
at the sheer size of nothingness there
remembering all our concerns are so small
that the cosmos won't notice, or care.

But, though I'm astounded, astonished and such
at the firework display that I see,
I'm amazed most of all that night loves me so much
he'd put on such a show – just for me.

xmonad (thing)

2009-11-29T06:58:45Z

No writeup on xmonad? What the hell is the matter with you people?

Xmonad is the totally bitching, kick-ass tiling window manager written in Haskell for use with the X11 windowing environment. It is incredibly configurable and allows you to do things like:

Arrange your windows in a Fibonacci spiral
Press mod-P to run dmenu, which lets you run any program with visual autocomplete.
Run xmobar, which you could really do anyway, but if you use the avoidstruts layout, it works very nicely, and xmobar/dzen/whatever will take the output from xmonad's loghook and jam it right into your totally bitching menubar!
Write extensions in Haskell!
Do whatever the hell you want, because Haskell is the best programming language in the history of programming languages!

Did I not sell you on using xmonad yet? Well, here's my xmonad.hs, for your perusal. It has a bunch of…