What is that?
It's a duck pond.
Why aren't there any ducks?
I don't know. There's never any ducks.
Then how do you know it's a duck pond?
Sunday, April 27
To Sleep, A Chance To Successively Approximate
I'm sure that many of my readers are quite capable of figuratively extracting square- and cube-roots in their sleep, but does anyone else
literally do this?
Just woke up from a nap with an accurate but unhelpful answer to a problem in my head...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
07:36 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.
1
Yeah, that has happened to me at times, especially when I really wanted to solve the problem that bugged me. More often than not, they were physics problems, though. <3 Physics.
Posted by: Michael at Monday, April 28 2008 09:44 AM (MdyQq)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Saturday, April 26
No Habla PHP
Just got a spate of error reports from Minx...
Because someone's trying to run a phpBB attack against my blog. The gobbledegook that's supposed to decode into a code injection decodes instead into a request for a null page, which raises an exception.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
03:13 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.
Friday, April 25
Of Cheetahs And Men
A little background is needed for this one.
I was recently arguing in the comments at LGF with someone who claimed that the Theory of Evolution provided the basis for the Holocaust, much as Ben Stein does in Expelled.
He (the commenter, not Stein) provided a blatantly racist quote from T. H. Huxley in support of this claim. I countered that Huxley was morally and scientifically wrong; that such racism was endemic in the mid-19th century, even among abolitionists; and that the quote was taken from an essay Huxley wrote arguing for the abolition of slavery. And I provided a similarly racist quote from a abolition speech by
Abraham Lincoln.
So said commenter asked me - rather condescendingly - what grand change had taken place in Evolutionary Theory since Huxley's day to make him
scientifically wrong in this. And I pointed out that while race is a valid evolutionary concept, it doesn't apply to humans, because we lack sufficient genetic diversity. We're all one race.
The response asked, don't I think that this is miraculous? Clearly implying the hand of you-know-who.
And I said no; it just means we went through a genetic bottleneck in recent times, evolutionarily speaking. Much like cheetahs, which almost went extinct. But, I speculated, humans are more diverse than cheetahs, so we likely weren't as close to extinction as they.
But still too damn close for comfort. Just 70,000 years ago, our species may have been reduced to as few as 2000 individuals.
(via
Slashdot)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:57 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 254 words, total size 2 kb.
1
In reading this brief description of a revolutionary way to track human lineage via population DNA mapping, I was struck by the theorized reduction of human numbers to the thousands. What is stated is the prolonged drought conditions in East Africa for several tens of thousands of years. I note that such conditions strongly imply a period of global warming. So, here's the right hand turn into bizarro contemporary political correctness and politics: how could this disaster be Bush's fault? And how could global warming occur in the absence of human-caused green-house gases? Kind of makes you look at pedants like Al Gore and think "Gosh, maybe planetary weather trends have extremes irrespective of human activity. Maybe the assumptions that current climate trends are caused by human activities, are just that, assumptions". Of course, that would be an inconvenient truth.
Posted by: Raging Duck at Friday, April 25 2008 06:03 PM (wyKPM)
2
Global warming and cooling periods have affected the Earth even in historical times. The Vikings settled Greenland, for example, during the Medieval Warm Period. Who today would voluntarily settle that place, much less name it "Greenland".
And then, during the Little Ice Age that followed, the Greenland colonies were wiped out.
The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is based on two factors: Global trends towards higher temperatures, and trends towards increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (primarily CO
2, but also methane and others).
It's quite certain that if we pump enough CO
2 into the atmosphere, temperatures will soar. It's the subject of mathematical modelling whether the amount of added CO
2 at present is the cause of the temperature increases we've seen. The models are pretty convincing, but it's not an open-and-shut case.
It's still a good idea not to ignore the potential problem. Human industrial activity is large enough in scale to eliminate our biosphere by accident if we don't manage it properly. CFC's and the ozone layer were a pretty direct example of cause and effect, and in that case we acted promptly and the ozone layer recovered as predicted.
I'm no shrieking greenie, but I'm solidly in favour of constructing more nuclear reactors to replace coal-fired plants; the nuclear reactors are cleaner, produce negligible greenhouse gases, and release less radioactivity than coal.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, April 25 2008 07:56 PM (PiXy!)
3
"Gosh, maybe planetary weather trends have extremes irrespective of
human activity. Maybe the assumptions that current climate trends are
caused by human activities, are just that, assumptions"Giant meteors falling out of the sky and wiping out 90% of life on Earth are also purely natural phenomena, irrespective of human activity. And you know what? I don't want that to happen either.
If building a fleet of nuclear armed-spacecraft is what it takes to stop the next perfectly natural meteor, then I'm fine with paying for that. If reducing carbon emissions is what it takes to stop or mitigate the next perfectly natural global warming, then I'm fine with paying for that. Heck, I'm even fine with removing carbon from the atmosphere in an attempt to control the planet's natural cycles for our benefit.
What, exactly, do conservatives find disagreeable about this? When did the conservative movement buy into the liberal "naturalist" fallacy? Why is "it's natural" considered an answer to "the climate is changing" by the very same people who would be outraged if "it's natural" were the answer to the question "I'm bleeding and I'm going to die if you don't do something?"
Posted by: Yahzi at Monday, April 28 2008 04:03 AM (yn9dj)
4
If reducing carbon emissions is what it takes to stop or mitigate the next perfectly natural global warming, then I'm fine with paying for that.
What, exactly, do conservatives find disagreeable about this?
There's no evidence yet that reducing carbon emissions would have any effect at all on global warming. I'm against useless gestures which would be profoundly harmful in other ways.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, April 28 2008 07:09 AM (+rSRq)
5
While it is true that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the most important greenhouse gas on Earth is H2O. As vapor, water tends to trap heat. As clouds, water tends to reject heat. Both effects are stronger than the influence of the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, CO2 is a trailing indicator of temperature change. As the temperature of the oceans rises, the solubility of dissolved gases including CO2 drops. The CO2 comes out of solution and goes into the air.
It is estimated that, if humans were to cease producing CO2 altogether (don't breathe!), the effect on climate temperatures would be too small to measure.
Finally, there are advantages to both warming and increased CO2. More CO2 makes plants grow better and need less irrigation.
Posted by: Dave at Wednesday, April 30 2008 02:58 PM (CkIMy)
6
As you say, CO
2 is normally a trailing indicator, and in current events may well also be partially a trailing indicator. But we are dumping unusual (not unprecedented, but unusual) amounts of CO
2 into the atmosphere, and it is a greenhouse gas, so caution is indicated.
You're right also that warming and CO
2 both have benefits as well as costs. (Actually, I'm not sure there are any direct costs of increased CO
2, at least at moderate levels.) But if climates change, say, it grows warmer, and the corn belt moves north (south in the southern hemisphere), the area with climatic conditions ideal for growing corn may coincide less with areas with soil suitable for growing corn, because the soils there were conditioned by millennia of a colder climate. And even if it works out even or better, transplanting agriculture from Kansas and Oklahoma to Manitoba and Saskatchewan is going to have its costs too.
So while I don't agree with the doomsayers, I do agree with those who advise caution. And nuclear reactors are shiny. Shiny is good.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, April 30 2008 05:18 PM (PiXy!)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Wednesday, April 23
Nonstandard Library
(
xkcd, obvy.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
01:23 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 4 words, total size 1 kb.
1
Partly because it's a neat comic, partly because I wanted to check the slide tag's handling of PNGs.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, April 23 2008 02:25 PM (PiXy!)
2
So, uh, Pixy, can I ask you a question?
Why the hell do we at Ace O Spades have New Comment Thingy?
Because whatever value it had in slowing the spam flood is TOTALLY GONE. Spambots aren't even bothering to wait until the next day before attaching their shit to posts.
There are a billion suggestions I could offer in killing this scourge, but the underlying question is: are you even planning to fight it?
Posted by: someone at Wednesday, April 23 2008 04:07 PM (2z2WN)
3
Yes.
The reason Ace has New Comments Thingy is because Movable Type was taking over a minute to post a single comment. And it was even worse at stopping spam.
We'll be moving Ace to a new blogging system very soon - we've been testing it on a copy of his blog for a little while now, and we're just putting in a few more tweaks before switching over. I was aiming to have it ready last weekend, but had to put it off until next weekend. But it's very close.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, April 23 2008 04:29 PM (PiXy!)
4
Oh, and when we move, we'll be doing a bulk filter of all the comments, so almost all of the old spam will disappear. The new filtering system isn't perfect, but it's pretty good.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, April 23 2008 04:35 PM (PiXy!)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Sunday, April 20
The Only Thing Worse
Than an ever-expanding cloud of rogue self-replicating robots is an ever-expanding cloud of rogue FTL self-replicating robots.
That can really ruin your entire day.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
02:30 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 28 words, total size 1 kb.
1
Robophobe! How do you know that the ever-expanding cloud of rogue FTL self-replicating robots doesn't want to live in peace?
Posted by: EvilOtto at Monday, April 21 2008 09:50 AM (08dnm)
2
Well, they
did destroy the Universe.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, April 21 2008 03:12 PM (PiXy!)
3
Oh, sure, hold THAT against them. Man, you destroy
one universe and people get so judgmental...
Posted by: EvilOtto at Monday, April 21 2008 09:15 PM (08dnm)
4
Yeah, they're really pikers. Evil Otto is planning to destroy
all the universes. You just wait.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, April 22 2008 07:44 AM (+rSRq)
5
Well, not
all the universes.
Posted by: EvilOtto at Tuesday, April 22 2008 10:09 AM (08dnm)
6
Definitely should spare the universe of joshikousei
baniigaaru's...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, April 22 2008 04:14 PM (+rSRq)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Wednesday, April 16
Pixy's Actually Useful Tip Of The Day, Part Two
If you INSERT IGNORE into a MySQL table with an auto-increment primary key, the counter will increment even if the INSERT is IGNORED due to a duplicate secondary index.
And if you're abusing this process in horrible ways, you can pretty quickly wrap a 32-bit int, in which case all your INSERTS will be IGNORED.
Solution: Use a 64-bit int.
Hey, I'm not saying it's a
good solution.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:20 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 77 words, total size 1 kb.
Monday, April 14
Pixy's Actually Useful Tip Of The Day
MySQL will automatically convert integer values into strings when needed.
Mostly.
When you are supplying an index key, it will do the conversion, and actually work, but the query analyzer won't recognise it and won't use the index. Even if you use a FORCE INDEX clause.
Yay for subtle but deadly behaviours.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:36 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 59 words, total size 1 kb.
1
Is that why my Fantastico says it can't connect to MySQL?
Posted by: pam at Tuesday, April 15 2008 12:53 AM (l6NIn)
2
No, that's something different. Still working on that one.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, April 15 2008 01:17 AM (PiXy!)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Pixy's Tip Of The Day
If you create something twice, the second time you may find it is already there.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
10:52 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.
Tuesday, April 08
I Can Has Annex M
My ISP -
iiNet - just announced (as of April 1) that they are now supporting ADSL2 Annex M, which increases the upstream bandwidth from 1Mbps to 3.5Mbps. (Well,
up to 3.5Mbps, depending on your distance from the exchange and overall line quality, but I'm pretty close to the exchange and have good S/N and attenuation levels.)
To do that, I first needed to upgrade to a business plan, which cost an extra $eek per month. Before, the only worthwhile extra I got with the business plan was a static IP, which I desperately needed but which wasn't worth $eek per month. Now I get a static IP and much faster uploads (plus less useful stuff like priority support), so I jumped on it.
Twice. Maybe three times. I tried to used the online plan changer thingy, but it refused to work, so I left it for another day. Only today I got an email billing me the extra business plan fees, and when I looked, there it was, a little tick box for enabling Annex M.
First I have to swap the modem. My old DG834v2 doesn't support Annex M, but my new DG834Gv4 does. Only they're on the wrong lines, respectively. Once that's done, though,
whoosh.
Update: Weird. I swapped the modems around, and ended up with two perfectly functional connections, instead of the expected zero. This probably means I'll get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
02:53 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.
Monday, April 07
Time Trials
I've been doing some benchmarking of Minx 1.2a5 (the latest alpha) against 1.1.1 (the current live version) before I commit to code-freeze and a very short beta. After a little tweaking, the scores look like this:
374kb generated in CPU 0.4, elapsed 0.4216 seconds.
113 queries taking 0.1052 seconds, 645 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.2a5.
374kb generated in CPU 0.4, elapsed 0.4102 seconds.
110 queries taking 0.0707 seconds, 633 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.1-aoi.
I was getting very worried an hour ago because the times for the 1.2 code were coming out
60% slower than 1. That would have sent me back to do a couple more weeks of profiling and performance tweaks.
Then I remembered that I'd turned off the JIT compiler to do a code coverage analysis. Turned that back on, and got the results you see here.
We've lost about 11 milliseconds overall in this benchmark, of which
35 ms went to database queries. Which means that excluding database queries, it's actually
faster.
On the database side of things, well, I'm now pulling in one or two additional joins on the most common queries to provide the necessary data for cross-site and multi-site functionality and the expanded comment (and related item) listings. The query time shown in the stats includes not just the database time, but also the processing of the data into native structures on the application side. That accounts for about a 25% increase in query processing time; where the other 25% went I'm not quite sure yet.
But the bottom line is that despite a whole raft of new features, Minx 1.2 is within a couple of percent of the speed of 1.1. And if I can just find one more performance tweak...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:04 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 290 words, total size 2 kb.
71kb generated in CPU 0.0507, elapsed 0.2094 seconds.
55 queries taking 0.1968 seconds, 372 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.