Most detailed movable robot sculpture

These pictures completely blew me away.  I want one, but someone on digg said this robot went for $37,000.  Robot Sculpture.

Live action Simpson's intro

I found this live action intro to the Simpsons on Adam Finley’s blog over at TV Squad’s site. That site has a bunch of people talking about TV, fully keywordized to help you find stuff you’re interested in.

Blogging client

I’m using a blogging client (BlogJet) to write this.  Hopefully it will work. Supposedly it has a nifty feature where it can figure out what music is playing on your computer and automatically include that information in your blog. But I’m not listening to music, I’m watching a movie (The Island). Keep your fingers crossed, here I go.

I've been reading a book called Accelerando by Stross. This other guy says it as well as I could. It's a great book. Well I think the first third is better than the rest, but by that time you are hooked. Legislatosaurus. Heh. And he uses my favorite word in the book: retcon

Wells Fargo Marketing is lame

I got a new ATM card today with a new credit card number on it, and the letter of explanation was so content free I had to share. Here is an excerpt:

Quote:

What is happening: In fulfilling our commitment to detect and prevent fraud on our customers' payment cards, Wells Fargo regularly reviews cardholder activity to identify unusual purchase and ATM transaction patterns. As part of this review process, your Check Card number was identified as being at risk for unauthorized transactions.

It's vaguely threatening, like saying "You could be in danger! News at 11:00." Of course, I review my own transactions, and there's nothing unusual on them. I take cash out at the same places every month. I buy groceries at the same grocery store. If the bank detects a strange pattern in my charges, I want them to call me on the phone and ask about the transactions, not just issue me a new card with a form letter.

Of course, any debits you have set up using the underlaying routing number will still work because the account number is the same. But if someone steals your credit card number, it won't work anymore because you have a new one. In general it's a good idea to rotate through card numbers more often. But it would be nice to have some warning. And if it's a preventive measure, you shouldn't start the letter by saying "your transaction pattern shows you are at risk" without any supporting details.

--chris

Philosophy

I finished the first volume of Atlas Shrugged last night, and checked out the complete book from the library tonight, on my way home from work. Then I transcribed the quotes I had scribbled down on the bookmark into my "quotes" file. Then I read the Wikipedia article on Ayn Rand, since I didn't yet know anything about her. Her first name rhymes with "lane." This led me to a description of Hume's is-ought problem, which is cool. The articles on Wikipedia are very approachable in my experience. Don't forget to donate if you use Wikipedia regularly.

Hume notices that all the books on philosophy that he has found start with the descriptive (This is so, that is so) and somewhere cut over to the prescriptive (this should be so, that should be so) as if the prescriptive naturally followed from the descriptive. Does it follow? How so?

I think the physical world is completely uninteresting except where it is (or its consequences are) perceived in some way by the thinking mind. I think the nature of truth is the same as the act of understanding. The only useful philosophy is in pursuit of a stated, tangible goal. It does no good to say "people should believe or act like so". A philosophical thought should start with: "In order to achieve X," (for example social harmony, or individual excellence, or whatever) "the rational way to proceed is to pursue Y and Z". (for example, individual non-violence, communist ideals, or whatever)

Oh well, back to my computer games. See you all next time the TV goes off for a bit.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6905089586228877019&q=sushi This video is totally cool. Watch it all the way through. It's very strange.