Eggs Maledict

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:51:25 GMT

I shaved my beard

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:07:07 GMT

Last night. Too itchy, will have to pirate without it.

COME PIRATE WITH ME!

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:33:05 GMT

Yes/Yaaar?

Saturday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day and, as a COLOSSAL nerd, I am going to go as an excuse to wear my frock coat while being...a massive nerd.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to come. Details are heeeaaaaaare.

Also I will be shaving my beard off soon after, probably the next day, because the weather is getting hot and so I need to remove it before I itch my face off.

Privilege

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:38:41 GMT

I'll start this by saying none of this is really original but it matters to me to identify and be aware of my own privilege, along with what it entails.

People don't generally like talking about privilege, I don't think. Even 'progressive' people I know, people who agree that racism and sexism are inherent parts of many of our societal structures and institutions, don't like the idea that their success isn't just a result of their own efforts.

It's too much a part of our basic beliefs that success is a result of the effort we put in, that "As hard as we work is as much as we get paid", a quote I heard on a Today Tonight or 60 Minutes trailer for an episode oh-so wittily entitled Cashed-Up Bogans. For many of us, our sense of self-worth relies on the belief that we have earned our position. It seems to be part of our desperate attempt to prove that our society has moved past the 'petty' ideologies of class; we don't see ourselves as living in a medieval world where rank and position are God-given attributes.

For some people, notably Libertarians, any questioning of this in indicative of mental defect on the part of the questioner. Their entire political, social and economic ideology depends on denying that our successes have any influence beyond the effort we put in. I consider this to be a bigoted and offensive idea, because it seems patently obvious to me that the poor, the oppressed, the disempowered of our society are not somehow inherently inferior or less dedicated. If we were to believe that their ideas are correct, we must also say that women are inferior to men (earning only around 80% the pay for the same work) and that People of Colour are inferior to white people (often earning around 66% the pay for the same work).

The advantages that I have as a result of privilege are pretty big. Probably big enough that for me, the claim that people's pay, prospects and whatever are based on how hard they work is true. FOR ME. Because as a result of a whole lot of things, I am constantly supported and defined as the norm by society. Michael Kimmel puts it neatly in this document about what privilege is and what it means:

To be white or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible. You're everywhere you look, you're the standard against which everyone else is measured. You're like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a "woman doctor," or they will say they went to see "the doctor." People will tell you they have a "gay colleague" or they'll tell you about "a colleague." A white person will be happy to tell you about a "black friend," but when that same person simple mentions a "friend," everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn't have the word "woman or "gay" or "minority" in the title is, de facto, a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses "literature," "history," or "political science."

I am pretty much everything that Kimmel is talking about and more. Notably (or perhaps not), I am:
-Straight
-White
-Male
-Cisgendered
-Middle Class
-Able-Bodied

And those are just the big ones that I'm aware of. There could be, and probably are, a whole lot more things that I'm blissfully unaware of.

And frankly that's just not good enough.

I'm not willing to say that because of a quirk of fate or genes or whatever people want to call it, I should have advantages over other people. It doesn't necessarily mean I have to work more or less hard than someone without my privilege, it just means that I have a series of inherent advantages that are entirely unearned and that as someone with those advantages it should be my responsibility to change that.

In practice, of course, that usually isn't how it works. It's no coincidence that most people who support oppressed groups are members of those groups, because they're the ones most aware of privilege because they live as people with less privilege every day of their lives. It shouldn't be up to oppressed people to justify their humanity or to fight constantly to be treated fairly.

So - what this means for me. It means that I have to be aware of my own privilege and not only avoid actively exploiting it, which is the easier part, but also not letting myself slip into exploiting privilege unconsciously. It's hard and I don't get it right all the time, by any means. I still have plenty of bad habits, phrases and thought-processes that I have to make a concerted effort to do away with. But that's the point. I'm not trying to do this because it's easy or convenient, I'm trying to do it because it's the right thing to do.

I'm a nerdy, tech-loving kinda guy, but really, just no

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:46:06 GMT

That's the LG Watch Phone GD910; pic from CNET AU

GOD DAMN IT!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:31:15 GMT

GOD DAMN IT!

Firefox has some wonderful features, like the ability to customise it, but GOD DAMN IT why doesn't it have an automated "You have entered data...do you wish to navigate away from this page" alert. I just lost a bunch of stuff I'll have to do from scratch because I twitched and accidentally clicked a bookmark, meaning that everything I had entered was lost.

GOD DAMN IT!

Immortality

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:56:57 GMT

The idea of a 'gift' of immortality misses the point of such an offering. It is a cruel joke, an act of malice and sadism, to give eternal life. Losing the fear of death simultaneously engenders the loss of the intensity demanded by a limited span; every granted wish is a dream destroyed and for an immortal there are few wishes that cannot be achieved. As one moves toward infinity, even the infinitely improbable becomes not merely probable, but certain.

Immortality is bleak; forever is no longer an abstract concept but a reality of one's existence. The meaningless of the uncaring cosmos is the only true constant - faith crumbles, slowly perhaps, but nonetheless degrades and eventually vanishes. Cynicism slowly replaces passion as time stretches out toward the vanishing point of infinity and morals and ethics dissolve in the face of their own changeability. Entropy and atrophy stand in every possible future and dominate every memory. The realisation that there truly is no greater meaning makes the very act of continuing to be a circular argument, simply I am because I am.

And yet still we hunger to be like gods, as though escaping the mortal coil should be our ultimate aim and not the most hideous of fates. We forget that immortality must eventually become infinite loneliness or boredom or horror and we blindly rush toward it, we seek to embrace it like a lover, hearing the siren cry and not seeing the rocks on which our sanity will be dashed apart. We seek to exchange the paralysing fear of death for the paralysing ennui of life without end.

...GODWIN!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 05:15:10 GMT

OH MY GOD I AM SUCH A NERD FOR WANTING THIS

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:45:40 GMT

Yes, it's a Darth Vader toaster that BURNS HIS FACE ON THE TOAST.

Something I put together while reading an article on the blagotubes

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:49:36 GMT

Yup

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:05:23 GMT

It was a Rick-Roll - well played internets.

Holy crap twitter makes this stuff fast. Instant information just keeps on coming.

HOLY CRAP

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:48:29 GMT

RICK ASTLEY IS DEAD! DEAD!

Or possiblythis is the Rick-Rolling of the entire internet...

EDIT: It's from ireport, so it may in fact be a Rick-Roll. I await confirmation.

So, shut up, I can enjoy watching Juno if I want to.

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:41:50 GMT

Look, I have a serious beard and a voice with a ridiculous amount of low-end (I never remember how much until someone plays back a recording or it echoes), I'm totally manly and masculine.

SHUT UP. It's a really good movie and the script is particularly hilarious. I'm watching it for the second time and it's just as good as the first time.

Don't judge me, internets. You're not better than me. I've finished my exams, I'm allowed to flake off. I don't are that I still have thousands of words of essays due.

HUSH.

Free Speech (I was going to talk about tasers too but this post is already longer than intended)

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:11:24 GMT

I can't be bothered to type out all my thoughts and things because I'm basically procrastinating, so here goes a (theoretically) quick post.

This was sparked off by reading the following in an ABC News Online article:

Donna Guthrie was there and she says they wanted to "defend democracy".

"Well we don't believe in free speech for fascists," she said.

"We do believe that if we give a platform to fascists in this country actually there's a correlation between them speaking and racist attacks and homophobic attacks taking place in this country.

"This is not a person that legitimately should be given any respect either by our free press or by people in common society."

The article is about the recent political successes of the British National party, who are indeed 'fascist', 'racist' and 'homophobic'. Protesting their photo op? Please. Exercise your free speech. Throwing eggs? I'm not really pro-violence, but hell, it's the BNP and unlike tasers, eggs have almost no chance of killing someone (barring some sort of horrible accident). But as soon as you say "we don't believe in free speech for fascists", you've lost me.

If they say something that's racial vilification, prosecute them under the relevant laws - the party's leader has been convicted once already. Certainly, argue with them, dispute what they say and point out just how illogical, hateful and untrue their statements are. That's the exercise of free speech and that's how it should work. If they're attacking groups who can't exercise their own freedom of speech, which is quite likely, then do what you can to give those people a voice. But there's no point having freedom of speech for some people and not for others.

I think freedom of speech is worth defending, but I also believe in equal speech. Believing in freedom of speech means actively supporting the free speech of others, especially those whose free speech is restrained. It means supporting education, supporting non-discriminatory speech and calling out people who act against that. Attacking anyone's freedom of speech is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong.

The caveat - there always is one - is that freedom of speech doesn't mean people cannot criticise or be criticised. Ampersand at Alas, a Blog wrote that "Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from criticism. And it’s not freedom from consequences." If people are inhibiting the free speech of others, or are acting to limit the free speech of others, then there are consequences. If you exercise you freedom of speech, you have to be prepared for other people to exercise theirs in response.

In a much less imperfect world, defending freedom of speech would be enough. But because not everyone has genuine freedom of speech, we do have laws in place to help protect people who aren't given the same opportunities. There are all kinds of elements that have to be balanced but until people stop abusing freedom of speech, we need those laws, because they're the lesser evil by a long shot.

This is all pretty ramble-tastic because I don't have a concise idea of how to balance freedom of speech with protecting people in my head, but it sort of comes down to this: you don't defend democracy by taking away or subverting someone else's freedom of speech. If you do that, you fall into the same trap that the left and atheists do all the time, which is letting your opponent(s) frame the argument - in this case, you are agreeing that certain groups aren't entitled to freedom of speech because they say something you don't agree with. Atheists ended up accepting the polar argument that one either supported religion or was totally against it and ended up acting like bigots and I've lost count of the number of times the Australian Labor Party, theoretically the left-of-centre major party, has allowed the conservatives to control how political debates are framed.

Every time the BNP says or does something that hurts people, or vilifies them, or whatever, call them on it. Fight for laws to protect people from abuses, make sure existing laws get enforced properly - they often aren't. Make people realise that the BNP really are fascists. But why use the same silencing tactics that we deplore in bigots, fascists and all the rest.

Ok so it's not very eloquent but it's procrastination and it should make sense.

Word clouds and speeches...

Mon, 25 May 2009 12:12:07 GMT

So Obama and Cheney made simultaneous speeches about security and Dad made word clouds.

As usual, size = frequency of the word's use. It's an interesting comparison.

Obama's Speech on Security by ~Eggs-Maledict on deviant ART

Cheney's Speech on Security by ~Eggs-Maledict on deviant ART

Someone...actually...thought...this...was...ARGH

Tue, 12 May 2009 13:59:28 GMT

So I'd always thought the KMFDM song 'New American Century' was something they'd made up; it was a good title for a song about surveillance, loss of liberties and so on...but...it exists.

Welcome to the Project for the New American Century

I'm thanking my lucky stars they got booted out of office last year, but these people still scare the bejeebers out of me...

I got published in the Herald!

Fri, 08 May 2009 13:55:51 GMT

Ok so it was just a letter and it was edited from what I originally sent, but...still!

areyoustrange posted about it first, which is kinda indicative of my LJ usage, but on the other hand she was most complimentary.

So the letter...the one the Herald put in was as follows:

Mastering the metaphor
Malcolm Turnbull seems to have got his literary wires crossed. Asked about Kevin Rudd being cast as Robin Hood, he said Wayne Swan and Mr Rudd were "more like Ali Baba and the 40 thieves".

Ali Baba stole from the thieves. He took money from people who had stolen it, which, in these days of executive bonus scandals, sounds rather complimentary. Mr Turnbull might want to consider Aristotle, particularly his point that "the greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor".

The one I submitted was somewhat more lengthy and the Herald did a good job of cutting it to the necessary essentials, as you'll see:

Malcolm Turnbull seems to have got his literary wires crossed rather horribly.

Asked about Kevin Rudd being cast as Robyn Hood, he attempted a pithy response with "I have to say I think Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd are more like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves".

This attempt at a K-Rudd-esque sound bite succeeded in getting him broadcast, but sadly for him, that meant he got broadcast being a little .

Because, however Mr. Turnbull might think the story goes, he has made the wrong comparison entirely. Ali Baba stole from the thieves. He took money from people who had stolen it...which, in the days of the great executive bonus scandal, sounds rather complimentary.

A more contextually appropriate, albeit less pithy response might have been "He's more like the Sheriff of Nottingham", thus leaving it for others to suggest that Turnbull himself was Robin Hood.

This followed a speech to the National Press Club in which the (Liberal Party) Opposition Leader attacked the Government for not putting enough into infrastructure.

During the speech came the puzzling assertion: "But instead we have a Government that is addicted to debt. A Government that does not know whether it is Jekyll or Hyde."

Wait. What? Where's the connection?

It all begins to give the impression that Mr. Turnbull is attempting to have an intelligent discussion by quoting book titles.

Stand by for Turnbull's next speech and a comparison between Mr. Swan and The Ugly Duckling.

Mr. Turnbull might want to consider Aristotle, most particularly his point that "The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor".

So...yeah. Excited!

[LJ/Blogger cross-post, with some slight alterations]

I am SICK

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:12:50 GMT

This is ridiculous. I stay at uni to do research for an essay due Thursday and end up doing facebook quizzes. Kill me.

Procrastination may be my greatest talent...

On the plus side I found some interesting stuff...via theweaselking come two things:

Your PIN is not as safe inside the banking system as you think

and

Man VS Python with interesting process and results

From Alas, a Blog comes this interesting piece about the upcoming live action film of The Last Airbender. Deals with the way some producers try to do to sugar (or chocolate) coat their 'white people must play the heroes' attitude with faux diversity - though in this case, it seems to be such a pathetically thin veneer as to be laughable. Specifically, the 3 protagonists are white, the villains are People of Colour, and the victims are People of Colour. I never watched much Avatar, but I kinda liked what I saw and even my brief brush leaves me massively confused about the choices being made.

An illustrative quote for those who don't want to read the whole thing:

So in the name of diversity, the film’s producers are ignoring the diversity that was in the original cartoon — characters who evoked cultures as wildly disparate as the Inuit, Mayans, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Pacific Islanders, Arabs, Japanese, Tibetan, Ainu, and probably a dozen more. They’re replacing it with “Diversity: American Style”, in which all those ethnicities get lumped together into “one community” and stripped of agency, a few black and multiracial people get sprinkled on for flavor, and white people get the best parts and the most screentime.

Questions about books and a cessation of cross-posting

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:56:51 GMT

As I explain here I've decided to cease cross-posting medieval/academic stuff from my 'serious' (*cough-splutter*) blog and I'm just going to link instead. The post is about some books I found and want people's opinions on, if anyone knows them...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:36:42 GMT

highlyeccentric posted about this article.

It is, as noted, an excellent rebuttal to Mr. Sheehan - his article is somewhere in the archives of the SMH's Opinion section and I won't link to it because while I think he has the right to express his opinion, I think he's wrong and don't feel the need to promote his views. This article is really just an introductory sentence of an argument explaining why he's wrong.

I hope that, somewhere, Miguel Cervantes and H. G. Wells are toasting their success...

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:40:48 GMT

I know this is now a few days old...

EDIT: LJ is cutting it off, so just go look at it here

Don't forget the mouse-over text!

The relationship between castles and armies for the defence of the Holy Land

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:08:19 GMT

I wrote this last year for the Crusade and Jihad take-home exam. I wrote another essay too, on Saladin's strategy during the period post-Hattin, but it's nothing special. I think this one is pretty good though - any comments would be appreciated. There's one footnote in the original text (because it's a take-home exam, not a formal essay), which I've converted to *shudder* in-text, because there's not really any other options.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

(Cross-posted from Blogger)

The Crusader states in the Levant were always precariously placed; with hostile neighbours to the south and east and limited support from Europe, they relied on the careful use of both castles and field armies. The different tactics of Muslim forces and the geography of the Levant required different methods to those employed in Europe and so the Crusader states made a number of developments which pre-dated similar shifts in the West or were entirely peculiar to their circumstances. In particular, the blurring of offensive and defensive activities yielded a unique attitude of active defence and a tendency toward mobile warfare.

In controlling territories constantly threatened by war, castles were of inestimable value. This had become apparent in Europe since the time of Charlemagne, but the Crusader states went beyond the traditional uses of castles. Rather than acting simply as a base from which the local lord could control his subjects, collect taxes and defend his lands, Crusader castles were used aggressively to claim territory, particularly in border regions, asserting control of new territory as opposed to simply consolidating power. This use of castles was later seen in Europe, but not until almost a century later during the English conquest of Wales.

Aggressive border castles, then, represented a new attitude to the use of fortifications as not simply defensive but also as a method of conquest. By the same token, field armies had to be used in entirely different ways. The Crusader states were inevitably short of manpower, thanks to their isolation, so they had to rely on tactics and skill for victory. Frankish knights had established their dominance on the field during the First Crusade, with the dry, flat plains of the Levant allowing cavalry charges on a scale rarely possible on European battlefields, but they also faced a different type of enemy. Muslim armies were capable of putting large numbers of light cavalry into the field, especially in the form of cavalry archers. These forces were capable of avoiding the famous Frankish charge and could cut formations of knights to pieces with near-constant volleys of arrows. The armies of the Crusader states had to adapt their own tactics to face this and their solution was a very close interaction between cavalry and infantry forces.

Rather than treat cavalry, melee and ranged infantry as separate forces, the armies of the Crusader states integrated them to a remarkable degree. Combined infantry forces of shield-carrying spearmen and crossbowmen could hold off cavalry archers, using shield walls and volleys of crossbow bolts which were devastating to those lightly armoured forces. Meanwhile the knights, guarded by this infantry wall, could answer a Muslim attack, including a cavalry charge – Arabic forces in particular were noted for their own heavy cavalry – with their own; in almost every case, a successful Frankish charge would break its target.

This tactic evolved even further into a way of negotiating the often hostile and almost never secure lands that the Crusaders had conquered in the form of the so-called 'fighting march' (Smail, R. C. Crusading Warfare 1097-1193, Cambridge University Press, London, 1972, pp. 156-7). In this formation, the army marched with the knights surrounded by the infantry, providing the same mutual support on the march as on the battlefield. Doing so must have required an intense discipline, especially since medieval accounts refer to these columns fighting while on the march without breaking formation. This adaptation of a defensive tactic into an aggressive manoeuvre was closely linked to the aggressive use of castles, providing a mobile balance to the static power of fortified positions.

This balance of static and mobile power was the expression of the Crusader states' need for an active defensive force. Castles, once constructed, could not simply be garrisoned and expected to dominate their surroundings but were instead operational bases and supply points. In an emergency a field force could certainly fall back to a castle to avoid total destruction but this was usually a dangerous move; by staying in the field, the force was able to restrict the mobility of attackers, constantly threatening them, while the castle remained as an obstacle which usually controlled a commanding position. An enemy who ignored this risked having their supply lines cut or a rear attack and the ability of a mobile force to cut its opponents off from water was a major factor, as seen at the battle of Hattin.

The relationship between castles and the various branches of field armies in the Crusader states was profoundly inter-dependent, with a degree of interaction that was not seen in the West for well over a century. Ideas which developed slowly in the West were by necessity explored much earlier, from the aggressive use of castles to the combined-arms tactics of the fighting march and the mass cavalry charge, which was not seen in Europe until the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Innovation and integration were the corner-stones of this system and, when used properly, it showed itself to be highly effective.

I actually tested this in about year 9 or 10 as a science project

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:49:45 GMT

It's hard to hear the quality difference "between an MP3 encoded at 128kbs and one encoded at 320 kbs". When I tested it in school, most people I tested couldn't really tell them apart. It's kinda interesting.

Here, via here.

Death by boredom

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:30:18 GMT

At work.

So very, very, very bored.

Save me.

Robbery and Vandalism

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:38:14 GMT

I'd play spot the funnies here but it'll get fixed soon I suspect. So it is:

[from Wikipedia article on a recent Bank of Ireland Robbery]

Upon the arrival of Smith, her mother, and Joan's five-year-old grandson (who had been collected along the way as his parents were flying to Spain on holiday) six heavily-built masked men, dressed in green velvet and carrying laser pistols, jumped from the bushes.

Hehehehehe...