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Monday, 11:26 pm, 31 January 2005 Two footnotes to ride the month out on... Darwin and Conflict One link point perhaps with Noble Warfare and the Noble Ape Simulation is the genetic effects of conflict. Thinking of ancient and medieval battles - what did they do to the gene-pool? What do modern wars do to the gene-pool? Do the aggressive survive? Do the passive survive? Are we descended from great warriors or weaponsmiths that supplied both sides and profited from conflict? These kind of questions can be simulated to some extent. But they are deeper questions too. Particularly in modern times. Shia Numbers Of my friends and family who know about the Middle East, I have been asking the following questions... If the Shia's control the government in Iraq will this result in a religious and political unification with Iraq and Iran? Obviously the elected Shias in Iraq are (superficially) sympathetic to the occupation but what does their religious ties provide? Who is Sistani backing? Are there secular Shias? Chalabi is mentioned as a secular Shia in some news reports. Following the creation of a Shia parliament in Iraq, if the Coalition of the Willing were to attack Iran, what would be the Iraqi Shia reaction? Good night. Monday, 08:11 pm, 31 January 2005 Cubism to Planes Working through the problems with Planet Noble Ape, I came to the realisation that mapping a plane to the surface of the planet was better achieved with two planes on either side of an eight sided figure. This provides an almost perfect mapping of two planes to the sphere. Calculating the points was no trivial matter - although I put the double precision maths into play and made sure the linking calculations were as symmetric as possible. What resulted was a 1Mb data ball which will have to become part of the Planet Noble Ape compilation. I think I can compress it down to about 200kb without too much hassle. Subliminal WeFunk I'm getting to the threshold where I think I am listening to WeFunk Radio too much. It is on my MP3 stick and my work machine. I'm consuming about eight hours a day - give or take an hour or two. I'm not listening to it live at 5-7am on a Saturday morning anymore although that is mainly due to my lack of machine with RealPlayer following the great ship-out earlier in the month. Since I started listening to WeFunk about three years ago now, I have experienced two lucid dreams about going to the WeFunk studios. Last night I experienced my third. Two of the dreams, the McGill campus looks a little like UCLA and a little like ANU. In one, it appeared more like UC Berkeley. I have never set foot in Montreal. The closest I have come is two days in Toronto about six years ago. But it got me thinking - what do I know about Montreal? At lunch today I Googled a photo of the CKUT studios where WeFunk is recorded weekly.  Looking for more images of Montreal, I found a photo of the infamous poutine, referred to regularly in freestyles and in on-air banter as the fuel of WeFunk.  Appetising? It's chips, cheese curd and gravy. I've always imagined a chicken gravy from familiar experiences in Australia but the poutine gravy isn't like that according to the reviews online. Seeing the photo of the CKUT studio made me realise how little one can pick up through weekly internet radio. I always imagined the CKUT building to be something super terranean - for a start - maybe a little harsh and dusty. Not something submerged and lush. Not old stonework or at least old stonework style. I suspect I have a forgotten memory of UC Berkeley student radio. The mind is a dangerous thing. Tuning in to the latest edition of WeFunk, I heard long-time WeFunk supporter Keynaan is performing at; http://www.vegasshuffle.net/ I think I'll probably check it out. Johnathon James lives in LA - or so I have read somewhere - so maybe he will cross the desert too. One Final Note... I subscribed to UK White Dwarf for two years following my inclusion in this month's issue. Never thought I would do it. But it is something I have lived for each month for the past couple of years. Double price for sending it overseas. This whole moving internationally project has become a bit of a blow out but far less costly than the last international move. From my Friday entry I heard from Fred Reed and Alex Brooks, although to be honest neither made contact because of the Log. Fred is in good spirits even without endless Barbalet commissions but recovering from a cold. I'm itching to get Fred some Kirill casts and see what he makes of the Orc-take on Stalingrad. Gurap forwarded me some satire and his own interpretation of the WD snippet. He wanted me to put my original letter online. I'm going to have to dig it up. Good night. Friday, 10:43 pm, 28 January 2005 Best Friday Night Ever... Waiting for the Simpsons to come on, wearing my typical bright red Hawaiian Friday Shirt, I reached for the latest issue of White Dwarf - issue 302 as it happens. Skimming through the usual merchandise I skipped to the editorial. Not being big on reading the text I noticed a picture of Fred Reed orcs. In fact, this picture with subtext;  Tom's classic Orc regiment My hands started shaking. Could it be that my mildly abusive fan letter and accompanying poster size set of images of my favourite Fred Reed painted orcs had hit a note with the White Dwarf editors? I put the magazine down in disbelief. I stood up from the couch to read; ... Which neatly segues into a letter we received from Tom Barabelet (sic). Poorly Painted Tom is a great fan of vintage GW models. He was a little miffed that the classics we showed in WD 298 were, ahem 'poorly painted' (I'm paraphrasing here). Well, yeah, some of these models were painted 20 years ago. And mine besides being clumsily daubed when I was 13, were also crushed unkindly into a box for several years. Sadly GW doesn't have these figures any more, so we couldn't get them painted specially as Mr Barabalet (sic - and yes second alternative spelling) suggests. Anyway, Tom sent in some pics of his classic Orcs with a nice paint job. Please Talk to Us Tom's letter was pretty interesting. We'd like more. ... Hands still shaking, I passed the magazine on to my wife who read the section I was gesturing towards. Her words of wisdom... This is a magazine intended for children. Do they know you are an adult? What a way to leave the UK. Good night [ Previous Log ]
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