…or rather, your donations!

Strange Horizons is a weekly speculative fiction e-zine that’s completely free to readers but still pays their artists and writers. Each year they hold a donation drive to help cover their costs. The current drive ends June 30th, and they only need $3,000 more to reach their goal.

If you’re a Strange Horizons reader, head on over and donate. If you’ve never read Strange Horizons before, check out their stuff, and then go donate.

Give if you can! They’re a great magazine publishing good writing.

Found this quiz at the beginning of the wonderfully written Doubt: A History.

The idea is that by answering these 13 questions, you can find out where on the scale of belief vs unbelief you fall:

1. Do you believe that a particular religious tradition holds accurate knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality and the purpose of human life?
2. Do you believe that some thinking being consciously made the universe?
3. Is there an identifiable force coursing through the universe, holding it together, or uniting all life-forms?
4. Could prayer be in any way effective, that is, do you believe that such a being or force (as posited above) could ever be responsive to your thoughts or words?
5. Do you believe this being or force can think or speak?
6. Do you believe this being has a memory or can make plans?
7. Does this force sometimes take a human form?
8. Do you believe that the thinking part or animating force of a human being continues to exist after the body has died?
9. Do you believe that any part of a human being survives death, elsewhere or here on earth?
10. Do you believe that feelings about things should be admitted as evidence in establishing reality?
11. Do you believe that love and inner feelings of morality suggest that there is a world beyond that of biology, social patterns, and accident--i.e., a realm of higher meaning?
12. Do you believe that the world is not completely knowable by science?
13. If someone were to say, "The universe is nothing but an accidental pile of stuff, jostling around with no rhyme or reason, and all life on earth is but a tiny, utterly inconsequential speck of nothing, in a corner of space, existing in the blink of an eye never to be judged, noticed, or remembered," would you say, "Now that's going a bit far, that's a bit wrong-headed"?

So here's how the quiz is scored:

• If you said No to all 13, you're a hard-core atheist and rationalist materialist.
• If you said No to the first 7, then yes to the rest: you're an atheist with a pious relationship with universe
• If you said Not Sure to any two of the first seven, you're an agnostic
• And if you said Yes to nine or more, congratulations, you're a believer

I came out with a perfect 13 "No" answers, confirming my suspicions that I'm a cold and rational atheist. :)

How do you rate on the quiz? Do the results surprise you, or confirm what you already knew about your beliefs?

This week I've decided to roll up my programming sleeves and finally learn how to program in C++. I've been avoiding it for over a decade, so cracking open my copy of the C++ Primer took some courage.

To my surprise, my recent forays into Python and Java have prepared me pretty well for what I've encountered so far. I'm 250 pages into the book, and though some elements of the language seem strange to me (why would you use arrays and pointers when you've got vectors?), nothing has flown over my head.

That could change as I get deeper into the language.

If any of you are familiar with C++, is there anything I should look out for, or pay special attention to?

arrived in baltimore. wondered why i didn’t pack a jacket when i know they turn the a.c. on as soon as it hits 60 outside. bbbrrrr.

had dinner with ken and shari :) then said goodbye to lora for the night :( and took the light rail to the hotel, which was clean and mostly empty and really cheap.

after checking in, had drinks with cmar, burns, lafferty, hutchins, and others (b*tch). actually referred to these photos of Cmar with his 30th birthday cake as ‘not as sexy as they sound,’ thus proving i was at least somewhat drunk. good times.

After upgrading to 8.04, I found a strange bug: my sound worked normally from the internal speakers, but when I plugged in a set of headphones, no sound came out.

I scratched my head for a while trying to work this out till I found the workaround recommended here.

Basically all you need to do is right-click on the Volume Control applet, select Open Volume Control, then Edit -> Preferences. Check the box for “Surround,” then close the Preferences window and unmute the track marked “Surround.” That should do it.

I’ve hopped on yet another Web 2.0 bandwagon by joining Twitter.

My username’s mindbat (of course). Join up, and let’s Follow each other about all day (it’s not as creepy as it sounds, I promise).

I was all set to install an application built using Adobe's AIR platform when I took a minute to actually read the End-User License Agreement. What I read made me cancel the install, rather than agree to the EULA.

What was so bad? Well, for a development platform that's supposed to let users run web apps from their desktop, regardless of their operating system, AIR can apparently only be used once:

2.1 General Use. Subject to the terms of this agreement, including the important restrictions in Section 3, you may install and use a copy of the Software on one compatible computer. The Software may not be shared, installed or used concurrently on different computers

Did you catch that? They'll let you install it once, on one computer, and that's it. How useful is that? I migrate between a Mac computer at work and a Linux computer at home; this EULA means I can only have use AIR programs on one or the other, but not both.

As if that weren't crazy enough, Adobe still has the balls to claim they offer AIR with no warranty and no guarantees. So not only do they restrict where I can install and use their "free" software, but they also won't take responsibility for any damage it causes.

I was excited when I first heard about Adobe AIR. No more. AIR's EULA places Adobe firmly in the doesn't-care-about-user-freedom-at-all camp, and that's a camp I've left behind.

Bit the bullet today and upgraded to the latest Ubuntu distribution: 8.04.

I decided to try the automatic updater built into the Update Manager (after backing up all my data).

Everything went well until it asked me what to do with the /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Since my system is dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows, I've customized by boot menu to display the Windows XP partition when the computer starts. When the updater noticed the altered file, it asked me if I wanted to keep the old one or use the default (new) one.

I told it to keep the old one, since I wasn't sure I could duplicate the changes I'd made easily. The updater went along with this decision for a while, then decided it couldn't get some files it needed from the internet and crashed.

Luckily, my system was still running okay, so I found the menu.lst file and made a copy of it, then rebooted. The computer booted up into 7.10 fine, but when I ran the update manager, it told me my system was up to date!

What had happened? After looking around for a bit, I noticed my /boot folder had references to a new linux kernel, 2.6.24-16-generic. I pulled up my old /boot/grub/menu.lst file and saw it referred to the 2.6.22-14-generic kernel.

Ah-ha! I thought. The new kernel must be the one for 8.04. So I edited the menu.lst file so that this was the first entry:

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=03265ecc-a831-4aaf-8d13-fc06036d9211 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet

(the part after UUID may vary from what's on your computer; be sure to use whatever your old menu.lst file lists for your old linux kernel)

Then I rebooted the computer. Sure enough, this time it told me I was in Ubuntu 8.04! I ran the update manager again to check for anything it didn't load after crashing, and found 2 updates I needed.

When I pressed "Update" though, it told me dpkg was already running, and I had to run "dpkg --configure -a" to fix things.

So, I opened a Terminal and typed in "sudo dpkg --configure -a". It downloaded a few files, then asked me (again) if I wanted to replace the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. This time I let it use the default (new) one, secure in the knowledge that I had a backup of the old file.

That fixed everything. It wrote the menu.lst file it wanted, then rebooted. After reboot, I copied the part of the old menu.lst file that referred to my Windows install and pasted it into the new menu.lst.

Everything works now, none of my data is missing, and I can still get to Windows.

So, if you're upgrading to 8.04, be sure to backup your menu.lst file if you've changed it. Let the updater overwrite your old file, then manually paste your tweaks into its /boot/grub/menu.lst once the update's over. If I'd just done that, my update would've gone smoothly.

PS--If you're upgrading a Macbook, your sound may not work when you boot into 8.04. Try running "alsamixer" from the Terminal, then use the up arrow to max out the volume for the each of the channels it shows. That should do it.

Lora and I get to take a deserved break in two weeks when we go up to Balticon.

It's become an annual pilgrimage back to Maryland for us. We get to see old friends, try to make new ones, and pick up some new medieval dance moves. Plus, two good friends of ours--Dr. John Cmar and Laura Burns--are in the Science Program, so we can heckle them while they give a talk :)

If any other Friends of the 'Bat are going to be in the area, try to stop by the Con. Even better, drop me an email and let's arrange to meet somewhere and catch up with each other!

This is what my Palm TX should have been.

Granted, the Palm was a good organizer and datebook. But in the 21st Century, who cares about an electronic datebook that can't load Facebook or YouTube properly? I don't need a calendar application, I need to be able to get to my Google Calendar.

I do need to be able to watch videos without a lot of hassle. I do need to be able to read pdfs I've just downloaded. And I do need better text input methods than Graffiti.

The Nokia N810 delivers all this and more.

Here's how:

1) Web browsing: The Nokia's Mozilla-based browser renders web pages correctly, with all their CSS and Flash intact. And on the tablet's 800x600 display, they look great.

2) Ebooks: The Nokia's built-in pdf reader loads pdfs straight from the web and displays them perfectly. I don't need to have them converted first, like I did with the Palm.

3) Handwriting recognition: The Nokia gives me true handwriting recognition right out of the box. Instead of being stuck learning someone else's shorthand (Graffiti), I can train the tablet to recognize my own personal chicken-scratch. That makes it the first device I could see replacing my many notebooks.

I’m writing this on my brand-new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet!

It’s got trainable handwriting recognition, a fully-featured web browser, and Linux under the hood.

Goodbye, Palm. Hello, Open Source!

Once again, the Japanese prove Charles Stross' assertion that “they got our future, dammit.”

According to io9, Japan is set to become the first country with a robotics ministry, and has a plan to roll out robot labor in areas like janitorial services and caring for the elderly by 2010.

From the article:

You already see humanoid robots in Japan attending religious ceremonies, making sushi, planting rice, answering phones in corporate offices, subbing in as dance partners, and feeding old people whose motor skills are starting to fail. Animal bots have been making a big breakthrough too—from the digital Tamagochi to Paro the furry therapeutic seal, Japanese people are experts at satiating their need for companionship or assistance via low-maintenance mechanical friends. Monikers like Robot Kingdom and Robot Nation, which have been used to describe Japan since the 80s, are relevant now more than ever—with a shrinking labor force, declining birth rate, and an aging population, the demand for robotic help in hospitals, nursing homes, offices, and retail spaces is sky high. Researchers in Japan are confident that, in a few years time, humans and robots will coexist happily in a fully integrated man-machine society.

As one of the many beta testers on this new program, I highly recommend that everyone take advantage of Gmail’s new Custom Time feature.

Adam Maxwell, a game designer, recently posted an op-ed on Gamasutra claiming that writers don’t belong in the games industry.

That got this writer’s blood boiling, and I let off some steam with a point-by-point rebuttal I posted to the IGDA’s Game Writers' Special Interest Group’s mailing list. I was one of many, and we were all in a huff about the article.

Imagine my surprise when Wendy Despain, the Writers' SIG chair, contacted me about turning my rebuttal into the official SIG response! I re-wrote my screed as a more cohesive–and polite–essay, and Gamasutra posted it this morning.

Many thanks to Wendy for giving me the chance to strike back at the ignorance surrounding game writing.

In reading through an old copy of the Economist yesterday, I was struck by the magazine’s seeming schizophrenia. I could be reading an article reasonably discussing how governments could (and should) act to encourage businesses to shift to greener technologies in order to combat climate change, then turn the page to find phrases like “a strong Republican candidate for the 2008 presidency would be good for the country, and so good for the world,” or “so-and-so supports free markets, and so gets our support,” standing out without support or reasons given.

Where did the reason go? Can a magazine that pokes fun at people with knee-jerk reactions against evolution or capitalism get away with having its own verbal ticks? How can such an otherwise-reasonable-sounding magazine continue to have these serious intellectual hangups?

If we care to look at the record, truly free markets don’t seem to do so well for their societies. The much-lauded economic success of the “Asian Tiger” countries came not through pursuing free trade, but by imposing stiff trade tariffs and using government subsidies to grow native industries. Those economies–notably in South America–that swallowed the free market Kool-Aid have suffered wave after wave of bankruptcy and economic collapse.

And as the Economist itself admits, the “free market” has failed to deal with the challenge of global warming. It is up to governments–and the people voting for them–to force businesses to take up the responsibilities they would normally evade under an unfettered system.

Political candidates should be evaluated not on their party affiliation, nor even on their promises, but on their record of writing and voting on legislation. Economic ideas should be treated just as rigorously: if they fail to benefit society as a whole, they should be discarded. Clinging to the ideals of the past–whether communistic or capitalistic–is as contrary to reason as believing a ghost created the entire Earth in seven days.

John Scalzi’s put up a couple of recent posts about the business of writing.  The man knows what he’s talking about: he made over $160K from his wordsmithing skills last year.

If you haven’t read his books, you should; they’re straight-up science fiction with good characters facing tough choices, and he has a very easy to read prose style.  Start with Old Man’s War and work your way forward from there.

In the meantime, head over to his blog and listen to his advice on making it (financially) as a writer.   They’re long posts, but they’re well worth your time.

I use SoundJuicer to rip my music CDs into Ogg files, and play them in Rhythmbox.

Both programs work great, with the exception of stripping special characters--like ',' '<' or '#'--from filenames. SoundJuicer has an option marked "Strip Special Characters," but it doesn't always work. Some special characters--anything with an accent mark above it, for instance--it won't ever strip. Since Rhythmbox chokes on filenames with special characters, you have to change the filename before it'll play the file.

This is tedious to do manually, so I wrote a Python script to do it for me. It's not very elegant, but it gets the job done: invoke it from the command line followed by a path to the directory containing the files you need stripped of special characters, and it takes care of the rest.

Here's the code:

#!/usr/bin/python
# This is a simple python program to look through a directory and
# strip special characters from the filenames in that directory. I use
# it mostly to fix filenames after importing music from CDs.

# Invoke this program from the command line followed by the path to the directory
# containing the filenames you want fixed.
#
# Copyright (C) 2008 Ron Toland
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# long with this program. If not, see <[www.gnu.org/licenses/](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/)>.

import os, sys

def namefixer(dummy, dirname, filesindir):
for fname in filesindir:
newname = fname.replace(' ', '_')
newname2 = newname.replace(',', '')
newname3 = newname2.replace('+', '_')
newname4 = newname3.replace('-', '_')
newname5 = newname4.replace('#', 'no')
newname6 = newname5.replace('>', 'gt')
newname7 = newname6.replace('<', 'lt')
os.rename(os.path.join(dirname, fname), os.path.join(dirname, newname7))

if __name__ == '__main__':
os.path.walk(sys.argv[1], namefixer, None)

Save this file as "fixer.py" somewhere in your home directory, then use "chmod a+x fixer.py" to make it executable. To make it extra easy to use, create a link like this:

"sudo ln -s <full path to fixer.py> /usr/local/bin/namefixer"

That'll create a link file in your usr/local/bin folder that'll let you invoke the program from any directory just by typing: "namefixer <path to directory you want fixed>"

I'm still working on getting fixer.py to get rid of accented characters. When I figure it out, I'll post the corrected code. Should any of you, dear readers, get it working first, please let me know!

A friend recently wrote to me about encountering her first instance of racism directed against her, because she isn’t Jewish.

I started to reply with: “I’m surprised you’d find such prejudice alive and well in a Blue State, in the 21st century,” but stopped myself. How could I write those words? They’re a trite response that only someone who has never experienced discrimination, never been made to feel different and excluded, could write.

The truth is that prejudice is alive and well in the U.S. Until I worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center, I never realized how pervasive stereotypes really are, and how double-edged they can be. If a black person is passed over for a promotion, was it because they weren’t the best, or because they’re black? If that same person had been promoted, the question would still have come up: were they promoted just because they’re black? That’s a weight I would go crazy trying to bear; it’s hard enough trying to succeed in any field without having to wonder if your success is real, or being suppressed, or not.

I always thought discrimination would be something I’d experience from the outside, until I started telling people I was an atheist. I’ve had several people try to convince me I was not an atheist, because I’m too nice to not believe in God! One woman I told didn’t even know what an atheist was.

Now, I’ve not been spit on, or cursed, or denied a job because of my non-religion. But I have felt completely out of place, especially when people assume I’m a devout Christian just because I’m a white male. I feel a little like an unwilling spy, moving among people that would probably not even look at me if they knew my religious beliefs. I can still catch a taxi, but every time I do I wonder about those that can’t, just because their difference is easier to see.

Despite my “liberal” education, my own prejudices run parallel and opposite to the bias I encounter. Fundamentalists make me distinctly uncomfortable, and it’s normally hard for me to have a serious conversation with them without getting angry. If I ran a business, I wouldn’t really want them as customers. If I were choosing babysitters, I’d cross the devout off my list. The fact that the President of the United States thinks God talks to him scares the ever-lovin' sh*t out of me. It’s something I struggle with: to acknowledge their right to believe as they wish while I fight against every consequence of their beliefs.

What are your prejudices? When you call technical support, do you feel better if a man answers your call? If you’re white and enter a mall where most of the customers are black, do you stay as long to shop? If you’re an atheist, would you vote for a fundamentalist Christian?

Took the matchmaking survey offered by Glassbooth. Their survey won’t find your soulmate; it’s designed to find the presidential candidate whose stance on the issues matches your own.

My results?  Seems Dennis Kucinich (D) is my best bet.  He’s against the Iraq war (and has voted against it every time it’s come up in Congress), he’s for a national single-payer healthcare system, against warrantless wiretapping (voted against the Patriot Act every time it’s come up), and for an Energy Policy that moves us away from oil and coal.

That’s actually how I was leaning to vote in the primaries, so kudos to Glassbooth for accuracy.

One nice feature: the site gives you references for each of the policy positions they claim for the candidates.  I like reading what the candidate has actually said (or even better, how they’ve voted) about an issue, rather relying on some pundit’s assumption that so-and-so is “liberal” or “conservative.”

Try the survey out. What are your results?  Are they what you expected?  Do the results change how you will/would vote?

I got my hands on a Mac Pro at work over the holiday, and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu Linux on it. Everything went smoothly using the new 7.10 version of Ubuntu, so I wanted to post how I did it:

[Note: I’m assuming below that you’re running OS 10.5 and have already run Software Update to make sure your Mac software is current]

1. Download the Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit install disk from here.

2. Burn the Ubuntu ISO to a CD.

3. Download and install rEFIt. (Do this in OS X). I had to use their manual install. Don’t worry, it’s not hard; you just have to copy a folder from one location to another, then enter two lines into a Terminal window.

4. Run BootCamp (It’s in your Applications -> Utilities directory). Use it to partition your Mac Pro’s hard drive to make room for Linux. You can set the partition sizes to whatever you want; I left 100 GB for my Mac OS and 140 GB for Ubuntu. When the partitioning is done, quit BootCamp. Don’t let it to do anything else.

5. Insert the Ubuntu CD you made into your Superdrive and reboot. rEFIt should pop up and let you choose to boot from the CD. Do that.

6. Choose the first option from the Ubuntu CD menu. When Ubuntu boots, play around with it for a while to make sure it sees your hardware properly. I have an ATI X1900 video card that Ubuntu found and worked with perfectly; I can’t vouch for Nvidia cards, so make sure you can set your screen resolution okay.

7. When you’re satisfied that Ubuntu can “see” your hardware okay, double-click the “Install Ubuntu” icon on the desktop.

8. Okay, now comes the one scary part. Follow the install wizard’s instructions until you get to the partitioner. Choose Manual. When you see a list of partitions, find the one you made using BootCamp (you can tell from its size) and delete it. Now create a new partition of type ext3 using the rest of your available hard drive space. Set the mount point to “/”. You’ll get some warning about not having a swap partition. Ignore it, you’ll be fine.

9. Click through the rest of the installer and let it chug away.

10. When it tells you to remove the CD and reboot, do what it says. rEFIt should come up again and see your Linux install. Select it, watch Ubuntu boot, and enjoy your new Linux system!

That seems like a lot of work, but really it’s mostly just clicking a few default options and watching the installers run.

If you run into problems, or just want more information, check out this blog on running Linux on the Mac Pro, or the thorough Gentoo Linux Wiki page, or this helpful post on the Apple Forums.

For those Mac users who have switched to, or are trying out, Ubuntu Linux, here’s how to connect to your iDisk:

Step One:  Go to Places -> Connect to Server (from the top panelbar)

Step Two: Set the Service Type to “WebDav”.

Step Three: Enter “idisk.mac.com” as the Server.

Step Four:  Enter your .Mac username in both the “Folder” and “Username” boxes.

Step Five: Hit “Connect”.  A folder should appear on your desktop called “idisk.mac.com”.  Double-click the folder, and enter your .Mac account password when prompted.

That’s it!  You can access your entire iDisk from that folder on your desktop.  When you’re done, just right-click on the folder and choose “Unmount Volume” to Disconnect.

Fundamentalist Christians make a lot out of saying that the Bible is the true Word of God.  They use this belief as justification for taking the Bible literally, or at least as literally as they feel like (I don’t think any of them keep kosher).

But is this belief, itself, Biblical?  I remember many times when the Old Testament refers to a particular passage as the words of God.  I don’t remember a broad claim that every book in the entire collection is literally God jotting down his thoughts via holy Morse Code.   Admittedly, a claim within a book that it was true because it’s the Word of God would be wonderfully self-referential, but it would at least support the fundie’s loopy logic.

Do any of you know of such a claim?  A Biblical verse that claims the whole shebang is God talking through a human mouthpiece?

The Trackball of Truth has posted a review of EVE Online that sounds all too familiar: great graphics, steep learning curve, klunky user interface. Naturally, he’s stopped playing the game.

I had a similar experience with EVE. I didn’t think the learning curve was too bad (maybe I’m too used to number-crunching my way through a BattleTech game), but even though the graphics were stunning, I spent most of my time flying through space, looking for something to do. I stopped playing because I was bored, something I didn’t think was possible in an epic space opera game.

What about you guys? Any of you tried EVE, or another MMO, and quit because the interface was too hard to figure out or the gameplay was too boring?

Welcome to my new home on the web! As you can see, I’ve moved everything over from the old Blogger site, including the flash fiction pieces from O’Toole’s Pub.

My hope in switching over to my own domain is to have more room to grow and more control over the entire site. Bear with me as I putter around a bit and tweak things here and there to test out my growing XHTML and CSS skills.

I was just thinking how many cool web domain names are already taken, when I wondered, “What if you had a site with the name www.allthegoodnamesaretaken.com? Wouldn’t that be ironic and hip?”

It turns out someone beat me to the irony, but left out the hip: that domain name is being squatted on by some nameless company.