Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Doug Orleans' LiveJournal:

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Thursday, May 8th, 2008
4:59 pm	MBV ATP NY I just bought my ticket to the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival at a Catskills resort in Monticello, NY this September. It's "curated" by My Bloody Valentine, who miraculously appear to actually be playing shows this year (after being "on hiatus" since 1992), but I'll believe that when I see it! But even if they don't show up, it's a pretty incredible line-up for those of us who came of musical age in the early '90s: ( Polvo and Shellac and Dinosaur Jr, oh my! ) I didn't spring for the full package including accomodation, because I figure I can probably get a better deal at some other nearby motel (and I was too late for the on-site rooms that sold out a couple weeks ago). Or, maybe I'll try to share a room. Is anyone else here going? I'm also seriously considering getting a ticket to one of the MBV NYC shows that go on sale tomorrow, since they do not seem to have any plans to visit Boston on their supposed tour. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 5th, 2008
3:31 pm	OK Mendelssohn Recently I started listening to the local classical station, WCRB, for no particular reason other than a change of pace from the MIT station, WMBR, where I usually keep my nightstand clock-radio parked. (Well, I suppose it's also because I've been reading Gödel, Escher, Bach and wishing it had come with a soundtrack CD.) Anyway, last night I heard Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and a melody from it sounded familiar. Watch it on YouTube and see if you also recognize it: it first comes in at the 2:18 mark. ( No really, go watch that before reading further... ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
9:06 pm	Social Networking Wars A funny video about social networking sites. Well, I thought it was funny. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:29 am	Leisure vs. Accomplishment I retook the OKCupid Online Dating Persona Test because it had been over a year since the last time. (I've taken it three times now, and gotten a different result each time.) The following question is something I've been thinking about for a while now, though I had forgotten that this is where I saw it: Which is more appealing? a life of leisure a life of accomplishment I think I'm currently leaning towards accomplishment, but I don't remember what I answered before. A life of accomplishment seems to be the more responsible, admirable, heroic goal. But a life of leisure is also really appealing, especially now that I can afford it (assuming I can find a job at some point, which I'm pretty confident about for the moment). I have already accomplished something by getting a PhD, so maybe I'm entitled to just relax and enjoy the ride from here on out. But my dissertation is not something I'm particularly proud of—it's another in a long line of underachievements. But... maybe that means I'm just not cut out for achievement? And anyway, isn't accomplishment just a means to an end—the end being happiness, which comes with the rewards for accomplishment? I suppose general happiness is different from "a life of leisure", which connotes a certain hedonistic disregard for work. And accomplishment is its own reward, or so we're told. But really I think when it comes down to it, my ideas of leisure and accomplishment aren't contradictory: most of the things I would like to accomplish are both for my own leisure and forms of leisure. Now if only I could get someone to pay me for that! Current Music: The Four Color Manual, "Holding on to Sound" (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 27th, 2008
6:50 pm	Gas sale! A couple gas stations nearby are having 6-cents-off-per-gallon sales on weekends. This is just weird. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
4:11 pm	The Mouse and His Child (1977) The other day I was reading about Droste Effect packaging (via BoingBoing via pfranzosa's shared items) which made me think of The Mouse and His Child, an animated feature from 1977 that I fondly remembered from childhood, which had a plot element about finding "the last visible dog" in the recursive picture on a can of Bonzo Dog Food. A few years ago I read the book that the movie was based on, but the movie has not been released on DVD and so is pretty hard to find. But, in a discussion last night, prog pointed out that it must be available on the Internet somewhere, and sure enough the entire 77-minute film is available on YouTube! You can watch the whole thing in all its tripped-out '70s glory, or skip to about the 51 minute mark to watch the search for the last visible dog. The author of the book is Russel Hoban, whose Frances the Badger books I also knew from childhood. But ahkond mentioned that he is also well-known as the author of the post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker, which won the Campbell Award in 1982. That's a rather diverse oeuvre. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 18th, 2008
1:52 pm	Atheism evangelism Another informal poll: Is trying to convert someone to atheism any better than trying to convert someone to a religion? (30 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
5:21 pm	It's disc golf season! We've been having some great weather this week here in New England, and for a change it's looking like it will last through the weekend. Which means I'm starting to think about playing disc golf again! If you're in the area and interested in joining me this or some other weekend (or a weekday afternoon—yes, I'm still "on sabbatical"), let me know and I'll add you to my email invitation list. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
12:09 pm	Bad Mood Rising Here's an informal poll: What do you usually do to get out of a bad mood? Current Music: Rolling Stones, "Rocks Off" (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 7th, 2008
8:53 pm	Ted Turner on Charlie Rose Charlie Rose interviewed Ted Turner last week, and it's worth watching (the entire hour-long show is available via Google Video). It starts off somewhat slow, but once the conversation gets going (and Turner stops singing!) it's very entertaining. They blaze through a variety of topics, and Turner's straight talk shows why McCain really doesn't deserve that label. I briefly fantasized about a Ted Turner/Warren Buffett presidential ticket; this really isn't the year for more old rich white men in office, but among that category those might be the two I'd choose. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
3:42 pm	Baseball and motherhood Congratulations to bnewmark, who had her baby last Monday after going into labor in the first inning of the Washington Nationals' home opener. Current Music: Blake Babies, "Picture Perfect" (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
1:42 pm	Google Fools Day You may have seen Virgle or Gmail Custom Time yesterday, but that was just the tip of the iceberg: Google did a LOT more April Fools pranks. At least 16! Current Music: Never Gonna Give You Up Karaoke By Tay Zonday (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
3:40 am	My first Gameshelf weblog post Why am I up this late? Well, I just finished writing up my thoughts about the Winter 2008 IGDC games. I used the opportunity to make my first post to prog's Gameshelf weblog, which is nominally in support of his Gameshelf TV show, but mainly just a place for him and his cronies to ramble on about board games and video games and other quasi-game-related topics. So now I've asserted my cronyhood, and I can go to sleep. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
12:12 am	Yet another lyrics quiz And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The makes me really want to write a song in which all the words are in alphabetical order. In fact, this song actually works pretty well already: a all and angels as be believe bleed bonds broke burned burning but carried chains city climbed cold colours come crawled cross devil felt fields finger fire for found hand have haven’t healing held her highest honey i i’m in inside into it kingdom kissed know like lips looking loosed mountains my night of oh one only run running scaled shame spoke still stone the then these through tips to tongue walls warm was what will with yes you Although I imagine it more as a spoken-word piece than a song. Sprinkle in some punctuation and line breaks and you're gold! Now the question is, would that be a copyright violation? I should hope not, but... ...Wow, I swear I did not even realize the irony of asking that question about this song. I guess there's something in its essence that makes it want to be reconstituted. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
11:38 pm	Project Euler problem 46 On Friday, aarondf posted a call for help with problem 46 of Project Euler. It turned out to be a pretty simple problem, but aarondf had found a misleading definition of "odd composite" via Google which led him to miss the answer. I've become slightly obsessed with this problem, and have come up with a number of ways to write solution programs. You should try to write one yourself before reading further! ( Read more... ) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
12:56 pm	New Amsterdam After three episodes, I give a tentative thumbs-up to "New Amsterdam", on Fox on Monday nights at 9pm. It's an episodic police detective show, which generally doesn't thrill me. But the premise is intriguing, and so far they've been pulling it off. ( Slightly spoilery discussion of the premise and structure. ) Watch the first three episodes on the Fox website (or Bittorrent), or at least the pilot, directed by Lasse Hallström (although some important things don't get revealed until the second episode). (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
2:50 pm	You're an adult now! Happy 21st birthday to my sister, lolathehated: (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 10th, 2008
10:08 pm	Google Code I just set up a Google Code project for Pylon. The code is all covered by the brand new GNU AGPL v3, whee! I also have Google Code project pages for Knockabout and my Swindle libraries, but neither of those is ready for prime time yet. And, while I'm giving you a tour of my projects hosted elsewhere, over on Sourceforge I own the Socrates and DAJ projects, though the latter really belongs to my grad advisor at Northeastern (and I haven't touched it since before I graduated). (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
11:08 pm	Pylon on Volity Okay, you can play Pylon on Volity now. You'll need to download and install Gamut (follow the instructions on that Volity page). The UI is rather minimalist, but I hope it's not too hard to figure out what to do. (But you should read the rules first.) There is a bot available, but it plays completely randomly, so it shouldn't be hard to beat-- though I have actually lost to it a couple times when I wasn't paying attention! Let me know if you run into any problems, or if you have any suggestions for sprucing up the UI. And feel free to challenge me to a game if I'm around. It took me about a week of nearly full-time work to implement this (yes, I'm still unemployed), plus I had done some work on the UI last fall (sketching out the basic design elements in SVG and Javascript). Given how simple the game is, that's probably too much work, though it did involve learning Python from scratch. I expect the next implementation to go a lot quicker now that I have some experience. (My conclusion about Python: it's alright, but I didn't really see anything that would make me want to switch from Scheme as my preferred programming language. Especially since the latest pre-release versions of PLT Scheme have built-in support for iterators and comprehensions, which is one of the nicest features of Python.) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
1:42 pm	Essays I'm not writing today I almost wrote a couple of essays today: one about the scientific method and one about the social contract. Oh, and yesterday I almost wrote an essay about incompressibility. But I decided that right now I'd rather implement Pylon for Volity in Python, because (1) I don't know Python, and Python knowledge might be a good thing to have on my resume and (2) it will probably be quicker to write a game using zarf's Python Volity framework than to finish up the Swindle Volity framework I've been writing from scratch. Anyway, I thought I should at least write about not writing the essays; maybe it will encourage me to (or guilt me into) writing them some day soon, or at least maybe it will pique someone's interest enough to read about those topics elsewhere. Current Music: We Are Scientists, "Lousy Reputation" (5 Comments |Comment on this)