Color Blindness

With red/green color blindness, this image:

would look like this:

or this:

or this:

and the interesting thing is that we can't really say which of those it would look like: how would you design a test to tell whether someone saw red as green or whether they saw green as red?

Actually, most people who are color blind are only partially color blind, so they see it more like this:

and if you are partially color blind, this is what the top image looks like to us full trichromats:

A little programming trick

Have you ever wanted to have a C++ program that uses an MFC GUI and a console? Here's a link to how to do it.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/ysflight/mfcconsole/mfcconsole.html

For those who don't program in C++, you probably don't care, but here's an explanation, anyway: in the old days, before Windows, C++ programs used to have "print" statements to print to the screen you saw in DOS (They're called "printf" or "cout".) They're a convenient way to show what's going on in your program behind the scenes, or just to show a lot of information as the program is running. I still use it for most of my programs, becuase it's simpler than using all the Windows overhead.

Once you start programming for Windows, you get dialog boxes and menus and all that Graphical User Interface stuff, but you lose the ability to just print stuff out when you need to. This little hack lets you have the best of both worlds.

music

Some tracks I've enjoyed recently. I haven't watched these video links, I just found them by a search for the title and artist.

25 Years

Blackmore's Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTIUX26yl1s

32 Flavors

Ani DiFranco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVg7mtgEqGY

Almost Lover

A Fine Frenzy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZQeW6XPAE0

Any Day Now

Missy Higgins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeS-yorGtc

As I Lay Me Down

Sophie B. Hawkins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdU5GjYsvhA

Blue Light of the Flame

Dar Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN8RNeT9mLE

Breathe No More

Evanescence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH_EJo5MFR8

Broken Wings

Dougie MacLean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJer7-eAy3o

Diana's Song

Antje Duvekot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSs-dvS3Yvg

End Of May

Keren Ann

http://www.imeem.com/dancelover/music/KC9d2GVP/keren-ann-end-of-may/

Fear Sarah McLachlan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_vVmeUf6QU

February

Dar Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy-v-UgNhuI

Fields Of Gold (Live)

Eva Cassidy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YVil3Ajjs

Ghost Of A Rose

Blackmore's Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcj3Go3vFZw

Givin' Up On You

Lara Fabian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn5JGUy6b20

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Loreena McKennitt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2SR_P-_98s

Hide And Seek

Imogen Heap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cpSv2mNhhc

Holding Out For A Hero

Frou Frou

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2OIK-PZ6kA

Home	Vanessa Carlton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4hRENZEv3A

I Love You Always Forever

Donna Lewis

http://www.imeem.com/people/Vd2g2o/music/ic61WxZk/donna-lewis-i-love-you-always-forever/

I Wish

Kate Rusby

http://www.imeem.com/ifankucel/music/0e8i3M-y/kate-rusby-i-wish/

Kathy's Song

Eva Cassidy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G860hkE0Tc

Katrinah Josephina

Universal Hall Pass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H10O2TIWbXI

Lacrymosa

LIBERA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BveCwQSu-_w

Lullabye For A Stormy Night

Vienna Teng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkIwO_ofEeg

Marrakesh Night Market

Loreena McKennitt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXtrqHrHcI8

May It Be

Taliesin Orchestra

http://www.imeem.com/toughnelliegirl/music/W0jdRR9v/taliesin-orchestra-may-it-be/

Memories

Within Temptation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhzJO34SCoc

Monsters And Angels

Voice Of The Beehive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3C1K5b5VI

My Immortal

Evanescence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idd_92ajjwY

Laman and Lemuel are Dead

(from flickr)


I just wanted there to be a link here to the short play I wrote a while back.
Laman and Lemuel are Dead
It's funny-- years after I wrote this, I found out that the idea of evolving clocks shows up in Erewhon, only a few years after Darwin published The Origin of Species.

The Benefits of Computer Viruses

I know many people have had huge inconveniences from viruses and malware. I have spent many hours dealing with the consequences myself. But sometimes I wonder if in the end, maybe it's for the best? Imagine if we had built up the kind of infrastructure we have today without the constant threat of malicious code. A determined attacker would be able to wipe out the entire internet and everyone on it. Like a child who has never been exposed to mild colds, we would be at risk of fatal illness and be utterly unprepared.

The Undiscovered Country

Sometimes it is whispered that there is a country which has been left off all maps, edited out of all encyclopedias, hidden from the view of satellites by means of a complicated deception about the radius of the earth and the value of the gravitational constant. They call it "Clandestine." The CCC (Cabal of Cartographic Conspiracy) has managed to keep this nation secret since the mid 1600s. It is rumored to be somewhere in the Specific ocean, north of the Isles of Langerhans, near the Freeway islands. After the Great Depression ended, many of the nomadic tribe of Hoboes emigrated there.
It's capital, they say, is the city of Apocrypha.

Tutankhamun

I was surprised to find out that I knew two of the three root words in this Egyptian name:

Tut - means image

Ankh - The symbol ☥ that means "living"

Amun - The head God, Amun-Re

So his name means "The image of the living God."