Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 12:30pm–2:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Note for Internet Listeners

The stream has been fixed! Now both listeners within the station’s terrestrial broadcast range and our internet listeners can enjoy the Freeform Faust Show.

Tune to the Freeform Faust Show on KWLC this Saturday from 12:30pm—2:00pm (CST) for an innovative and interactive radio experience. Local actor and director David Storlie will not only be the featured listener but will help inaugurate a new segment. Listeners are encouraged to break out the Shakespeare, call up the station (563.387.1240), and perform scenes of their choosing on the air with a real live actor. This is very exciting. The KWLC robots are practicing their favorite scenes so they can get in the act too. Don’t forget to tune it in.

Having a difficult time selecting a scene? Here are some hand picked cuttings by the actor himself.

• Selected Shakespeare Scenes (PDF)
• Selected Shakespeare Scenes (FlashPaper)

Okay, when I was growing up, like any self-respecting dork I watched old re-runs of Star Trek. Yeah, you know the one. It had Captain James T. Kirk and Spock and Scotty and the whole gang. Anyway, invariably at some point in the show the crew of the Enterprise would be trying to outrun some nasty aliens. But there would be a problem. So Kirk calls down to the boiler room in the basement, which is where Scotty lived. “Where’s the juice, my man?!” Captain Kirk would exclaim. Scotty would then start dropping some theoretical physics from the 32nd century or whatever. Kirk would get frustrated at the big words and start yelling at Spock.

Um…so where was I going with this? Oh yeah, so I was reading this press release from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, which rocks by the way, entitled Quantum computer solves problem, without running. Okay, so who am I in this picture? Kirk? No way. Scotty? No, Scotty is the guys at UIUC. I’m Spock.

As Spock, I’m trying to figure out rationally what is being talked about here. Or maybe I’m just me, and I’ve got Spock giving me advice on one shoulder, and Sherlock Holmes on the other shoulder whispering into my ear. So these guys at UIUC are doing some research on quantum computers. They’ve been running a search algorithm on their semi-hypothetical quantum computer on a database containing four elements. But then they start talking about photons, and things start getting a little fuzzy. So I’ll ask you, the reader, what do you make of the following?:

“By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm,” said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. “We also showed theoretically how to obtain the answer without ever running the algorithm, by using a ‘chained Zeno’ effect.”

These guys are doing computer science? The field has changed a lot since I was in college apparently.

Obviously this is all very cool but all very strange. Even the people at the press office at UIUC think it’s very strange:

Through clever use of beam splitters and both constructive and destructive interference, the researchers can put each photon in a superposition of taking two paths. Although a photon can occupy multiple places simultaneously, it can only make an actual appearance at one location. Its presence defines its path, and that can, in a very strange way, negate the need for the search algorithm to run.

All I can say is I hope someone over at Google is reading this and gives those guys some grant money because it’s quite apparent to me that “utilizing two coupled optical interferometers, nested within a third” to search a database using a “quantum search algorithm” is the wave of the future. Bravo!

I often find myself looking up the special codes used to create accented letters and symbols on the web. These special codes are called HTML Entities. A couple of good listings are at htmlhelp.com and cs.tut.fi. In some cases, there are three or more ways to render a particular character. For example, the letter å:

1. å = å
2. å = å
3. å = å

If your browser supports all of those encodings, then the letter å should show in front of all of them. For accented letters like that, the å HTML entity encoding has the most browser support. But not all characters have such a nice entity encoding like that. In that case, you’ll want to use the second encoding, which is the decimal equivalent. Note that the third encoding above is the hex encoding, which tends to have the least browser support. With the help of HTML entities you can render lots of useful little symbols, such as the euro € or an ellipsis … Such great fun for the typographically minded of us.

Yesterday, I updated my Writing Maltese on the Web post to reflect what I’ve learned about rendering Unicode characters on the web. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the code charts under the Latin heading at the Unicode.org website. Also useful are these charts for punctuation and symbols. You can find the hex encoding for any symbol you could possibly want, such as obscure symbols like the interrobang, which in hex is 203D. I just whip out my handy calculator and convert that to decimal, which is 8253. So if I wanted to render the interrobang, what would I do‽ Just use the decimal in your HTML code, which renders as so: ‽ = ‽ If you’re saying to yourself, “What the funk is an interrobang‽” then you may want to check out this Wikipedia entry. It’s just a cross between an exclamation point and a question mark.

For some reason I was thinking of London and remembering the time the pub cleaner let us in even though it was after 11pm and at that time all pubs closed at 11pm. I still recall the drink that the pub sweeper introduced us to. It’s called the Snake Bite Black. Maybe you’ve heard of a Snake Bite. It’s half lager and half cider. The Snake Bite Black adds a splash or two of blackcurrant cordial. In my opinion, the blackcurrant adds a lot to the flavor of the drink.

So, to get the ingredients to make your own Snake Bite Black, I recommend the following:

• ½ pint of Harp Lager
• ½ pint of Strongbow or Woodpecker Cider
• a splash of Blackcurrant Syrup

It’s a tasty drink, and it’s very easy to make. Ah, yes, memories of London. You don’t necessarily have to go to the U.K. to enjoy this drink. You’ve got the recipe. Now go to it!

While you’re having fun with your friends drinking a Snake Bite Black, you’ll probably want to listen to some music. For some strange reason, I’d recommend Voodoo Jive: The Best of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, which I happened across at the public library earlier tonight. I still remember the first time I heard “I Put A Spell On You” and “Alligator Wine.” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was a true original. Crazy, man, crazy!

We fully intended to write a response to Mike Rohde’s great blog post about being a Pen Freak and in fact thought we had. A quick search indicates that we may not have recorded for posterity our thoughts on writing devices. So here goes.

A pen is a very personal choice, and for those of us who enjoy writing or drawing, an important one. You don’t need much to write—a piece of paper and a pen. But if you’re going to be putting a lot of ink down on paper, it helps to have a tool that you’re comfortable with. We need something that flows smoothly, and this is very important: writes with a narrow stream of ink. Our handwriting is such that a medium nib on a fountain pen or a medium-sized roller ball reduces our scrawl to illegibility.

For best all-around inexpensive pen, we’ve been using the Pilot Precise V5 since college. It writes smoothly and has an extra fine tip. The ink is a luxurious black. This is a pen that writes well, and one doesn’t mind losing them occasionally. We buy them in boxes of 12 and are available at any office supply store. Pilot calls it the “ultimate writing machine,” and they’re pretty much right on. It’s an excellent pen.

In my house growing up, there were also a lot of antique fountain pens lying about, and these were decidedly fun to write with. Some of them had reservoirs that one would fill with India Ink.

We don’t remember when we got our first fountain pen of our own, but we’ve pretty much always had a couple that we use especially for writing letters. In 1991, we went the way of industrial design and purchased a black Lamy Safari fountain pen from the museum store at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. At that time, it was $25 and was constructed mostly of plastic. But it looked cool, and it was of course a fountain pen.

A year or two ago, we were looking for a place to buy fountain pens and came across the excellent Fountain Pen Hospital. They have a showroom at 10 Warren St across from City Hall in New York City. But they also do a great mail order business. They’ve got pretty much everything you could want in fine pens.

We purchased a Lamy Safari fountain pen in yellow with an extra fine nib from the Fountain Pen Hospital and were very pleased with the service. We also bought a bunch of ink cartidges at the time as well. Their prices were good. That Lamy Safari pen still lists for $25, and the FPH sold it to us for $21.95. Not a bad deal for a nice pen that catches everyone’s eye.

Our only complaint about Fountain Pen Hospital is that they’ve inundated our mailbox with catalogs and flyers. Sure, we appreciate a fine writing instrument as much as anyone else, but our interest in $4,000 fountain pens is pretty limited. If you dig around, you’ll see that FPH has a lot of fountain pens in the $125-$625 range, but they’ve got some great pens for under $100 as well. Us? We totally dig our yellow Lamy Safari and leave it at that.

Back in 1998, Lars Wirzenius gave a talk at Linux Expo. He recounts the early days of Linux and of its progenitor Linus Torvalds. An amusing read certainly. Wirzenius was Torvalds’ officemate at the University of Helsinki so he would be the one to know. [via MeFi]

Tricia Ho, a graduate of industrial design from the University of New South Wales, has created an electric violin that uses high technology to be more comfortable to the musician. It’s cool looking—fairly exotic actually—and seeing how it wraps around the neck seems like, yes, indeed, it would be a more comfortable instrument to play. To quote from the press release:

“It’s my idea of the perfect electric violin,” says Ms Ho. “I designed it to help reduce the neck and shoulder pain that plague many violinists, and to make playing as comfortable as possible.”

Both the malleable frame, which sits around a players’ neck, and the lip which curves around the shoulder, are made from a high-tech shape memory polymer, called Veriflex™. The polymer, which can be moulded at a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, allows violinists to shape the frame to their body to maximise their comfort. The waterproof frame can be manually reshaped after immersing it in a dish of warm-to-hot water for a few minutes. The reshaping of the frame is reversible and can be changed as often as desired.

More photos here. [via 3QD]

At this juncture, we would also like to note that our partner in blogging Herr Gertz is an electric violin player, and we just wanted to point this out to him, and we were wondering too, well, we were wondering about Transmission Sickness and if he and Clark and us would jam out some weekend, perhaps on a street corner in Brooklyn, if, you know, everyone thought that’d be a cool idea.

Often when I’m walking down the street, people come up to me and say, “Dan, I’ve been afraid to try Linux. Robert Scoble has me whipped. I’ve been using Windows for so long, I don’t know anything else.” It is such an easy thing. To this person, I give my best Buddha smile and say, “Kind sir, the reasons to switch are compelling. If you are a dutiful neophyte, we shall instruct you in the ways that you can liberate yourself and join the Linux world.”

Windows comes from the dominant culture. It is produced by a monopolistic multinational corporation. If you don’t know how to—or don’t want to—think for yourself, then follow this path. Down that road lies much distance from love and happiness, these essential things of life. But if you choose enlightenment, then the road is varied and interesting. There are many different paths to choose from. Like Robert Frost said, it is the road less traveled.

Linux offers security, variety, and peace. It is a wonderful platform. To switch today to Linux is much easier than you might expect. In fact, it just takes a thought: “I want something different.” To someone such as yourself, I would recommend the dual-boot system. Install Linux on, say, half your hard drive, and Windows can install on the other half. When you boot up, the beloved GRUB bootloader will ask “Linux or Windows?” and you can boot into either.

This is a good way to go for the Linux neophyte. But keep in mind the goal: to use Linux more and more everyday. Sure, if you want to waste some time with Half-Life 2, then feel free to boot into Windows. But you’ll find that Linux offers as much, in fact, much, much more than Windows.

One of the key differences between Linux is Windows is what comes with your base system. If you install Windows on your computer, you’re left with a system that can’t do much. Sure there’s Notepad, but not much else. We’ll quickly admit that once you’ve used any of the myriad of text editors available on Linux, you’ll see what a cludge Notepad is. In fact, right now, I’m writing these words in Kate, one of the text editors available in the K Desktop Environment (KDE).

Kate is a simple example of all the great tools available on Linux. It is an “advanced text editor”—not a word processor. In fact, I edit my websites in Kate. It offers code highlighting, line numbering, and all the essential features of a text editor. I like using it better than Dreamweaver. It’s a lot fast and more responsive. There’s not a long wait for it to load like Dreamweaver. For my purposes it works far better than that expensive commercial software.

With Linux, the system comes loaded with hundreds of great tools for all sorts of different purposes. If you want office applications, OpenOffice comes installed. If you want IDEs to code C++ or Java, you can install those too. What would cost literally thousands of dollars to obtain with Windows, comes installed for free with Linux. Even to get just a basic text editor like Kate on Windows will set you back $30, $60, or more.

The point being that Linux is supported by a community of users and developers. That means there’s a lot of support online if you have questions. Linux has always been about helping each other out. For example, in the early days before there were published books on Linux, the Linux Documentation Project wrote extensive, well written documentation about how to run and install Linux. The LDP is still going, but now you can also go to your local bookstore and find a whole range of books about Linux.

You might even use some of the same programs on Linux as Windows. Do you use Firefox as your Windows internet browser? Well, that same Firefox also exists in a Linux version. The same people who make Firefox also make Thunderbird for email, again on Linux and Windows. But one really cool thing about Linux is that there’s no one like Bill Gates sitting on high in his ivory tower dictating how and why you should do things. With Linux you have a choice. If you want to run Firefox, you can. If you want to run a different browser, that’s fine too.

With Linux there’s nothing you have to do. With Windows, the Man is in charge of your system. With Linux, you are in charge. Even the whole look and feel of the system can be changed. Do you want a full-featured, powerful windowing system? Then run KDE. Want something simpler? Then run Gnome. Want something even simpler? There are options there too.

Don’t get me wrong: If you don’t want to change anything, you don’t have to. If you choose a default installation with Linux, it will give you a whole host of tools that most people like to use. But one of the freedoms of Linux is choice. If you don’t like one tool, you can use another. There is no orthodoxy saying you can only use Adobe applications or Microsoft applications. There are no monopolies on software when it comes to Linux.

The Linux community is a cool reason to get involved. You’ll find that the people involved in Linux are a lot more interesting and dynamic then you’ll find over in the Windows crowd. The Windows folk tend to be “entrenched.” They don’t like change. They don’t like new ideas. They have trouble dealing with choice, variety, and innovation. They tend to bury their heads in the sand whenever something new comes around. They like Microsoft’s monopoly because then they don’t have to think and thinking makes them uncomfortable.

Linux is liberation. Linux is freedom. The switch to Linux is easier than you ever imagined. Search. Learn. Investigate.

Here are two places to begin: openSUSE and Ubuntu.

If you’re looking for a commercial Linux distribution that includes phone support for installation, check out the excellent SUSE Linux available from Amazon.com here.

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 12:30pm–2:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Note for Internet Listeners

The stream is broken to the point that it is unlistenable. Listeners within the station’s terrestrial broadcast range are encouraged to tune in to the show the old fashioned way on 1240AM. Sorry internet listeners. :-(

Notes

I, Pencil

After threatening to stop the show if no one called with an answer to Listener Eric’s question (“Who knows how to make a number two pencil?”), Listener Sharon took mercy on me. The answer Listener Eric desired is “Nobody knows how to make a number two pencil”. For her kind act, she will receive a pack of number two pencils and perhaps a free cab ride. Thank you very much Listener Sharon! You saved the show.

A Robot Returns

Mike, one of my KWLC robots, finished serving his suspension for insubordination when he took over the show and played Kraftwerk.  Welcome back Mike!  It is great to have you back announcing songs and reading PSAs.

Wanted: Featured Listeners

Want to be a featured listener? Send a photo and a few words about yourself to FreeFormFaust at GMail dot com.

We watched a fine, fine documentary the other night called The Corporation. It’s a lesson in what’s wrong with the current corporate power structure. Very interesting thesis. Basically the film makes the point that multinational corporations are more powerful than governments in effecting their will to power, but that the corporation is today devoid of social responsibility and ethics. The film also takes issue with a fundamental definition of a corporation in the law as a “person” that can aquire assets, sell them, have income, has certain inalienable rights, etc. If you like to think, then this movie is for you. It’s a challenging film with a lot to say—from law to the environment to petrochemicals to ethics to modern society.

They talked to the best people with a view on this including a number of CEOs and executives. Very interesting perspectives were discussed. The film also features our favorite intellectual, Noam Chomsky from MIT. The documentary is very well done. A lot of time and research went into the making of this film.

The film was based on the book entitled The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan. Amazon.com has the film, as well as Netflix.

We first must admit that we were getting a little burned out by the mashups being released last year. After DJ Danger Mouse’s excellent The Grey Album, there were many pretenders and wanna-be mashupers who were making nasty, awful mashups that gave us headaches. Okay, that said, Best of Bootie 2005 are 20 of the best mash up tracks we’ve heard in a long, long while. This is a total jam session. The artists selected are clever. The meldings are blissful. We haven’t had this much fun in FAR TOO LONG! Best of all, the tracks are all freely available at the Best of Bootie 2005 CD website, available either as a 71 MB zipped file or a BitTorrent download. [via bb]

If you’ve never heard a mashup before, or if you only download one mashup album from the internet this year, make this one the one! It’s funkadunkadelic. Highly recommended!

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 12:30pm—2:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Note for Listener Abby or pet eel Arjyra

Call +1.563.387.1240 and you can sing the songs i can’t find.

Note for Internet Listeners

I guess that the stream isn’t working well. Sorry. :-(

Notes

New Time

Please note that the Freeform Faust show now airs on select Saturdays from 12:30pm—2:00pm (CST). That is two hours earlier than it has been. What affect will the loss of those two hours of valuable prep time have on the show? I am predicting that this show will be a complete train wreck and you certainly won’t want to miss that. Make sure to tell your friends, neighbors, and immediate family that if they don’t listen to any other radio this weekend, to please make sure that they listen to this show.

Friends of the show will be happy to learn that the new time slot means fewer preemptions by KWLC’s Luther College sports coverage and more Freeform Faust shows. Foes are encouraged to continue their spirited and usually non-violent protests. The apathetic may simply ignore this as it is probably of no concern.

Things I Didn’t Get Done Because I Lost Two Hours of Prep Time

• Comb hair
• Floss
• Find Kurt Elling’s The Messenger so that I could play ‘Tanya Jean’ for featured Listener Tanya Michelle

People Who Want a Dollar

• Listener Abby (please send the dollar to Arjyra, her pet eel)

Songs Requested by Listener Abby

• ‘Danny’ by Tiffany
• ‘Danny Boy’ by The Chieftains
• ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd

I, Pencil

I am still waiting for an answer to Listener Eric’s question: “Who knows how to make a number two pencil?” Please call (+1.563.387.1240) or e-mail (FreeFormFaust at GMail dot com) if you have an answer. The first listener to provide the answer Listener Eric seeks will receive a pack of number two pencils. At his discretion, Listener Eric may also take the winner for a cab ride.

Let me offer some help and clear up some confusion. You don’t need to know how to make a number two pencil yourself. You simply need to be able to provide the name of a single person on the face of this earth, if any, who knows how to make a number two pencil. Milton Friedman knows the answer. Leonard E. Read knew it too. Do a Google search and so can you.

Wanted: Featured Listeners

Want to be a featured listener? Send a photo and a few words about yourself to FreeFormFaust at GMail dot com.

Listen to the Podcast

If you click the link above, you can hear a recording of us reading the W. H. Auden poem entitled As I Walked Out One Evening. It’s a fine poem, and we hope you enjoy listening to it.

If you’d like to hear more of our poetry recitations, check out our PODCASTS section, which can be accessed by clicking the podcast link on the upper-right of any page.

We will pay a crisp $1 bill to everyone who calls Faust on Saturday during his 12:30pm (Central Time) radio show on KWLC at 563-387-1240 or perhaps 563-387-1241, and says the following words: “Are we shy? There’s no such thing as a podcast gone awry. Let me hear, my dear fellow, you podcast a fine bellow.”

In other news, Steve reveals his moral philosophy by stating that pens and pencils fall outside his moral universe and continues that his pen thieving is…a one-man crusade against pettiness. Is it any wonder that a teacher would be so eloquent about writing devices? We think not, and heartily applaud the man. Let’s all join the moral crusade against pettiness!

So I was having this discussion yesterday with someone about the Best. Her claim—having lived many years out East—was that the Ivy League is the Best. My argument was the University of Chicago is the Best. Ultimately, I think we’re both correct. We’re simply measuring things with different yardsticks. The Ivy League is known for producing great politicians, business people, and lawyers. I completely agree: the Ivy League is the Best. If MIT were part of the Ivy League, I might concede the point, but here’s where I draw the distinction. The University of Chicago is the Best in my book because they attract a higher grade of intellectual. I think Chicago, and the names of some intensely cerebral people come to mind. When it comes to intellectuals, the University of Chicago is the Best.

Anyway, I was reminded of all that this evening as I was reading The Moral Status of Animals in this week’s Chronicle by everyone’s favorite moral philosopher, the lovely Martha C. Nussbaum of the University of Chicago.

We humans share a world and its scarce resources with other intelligent creatures. As the court said, those creatures are capable of dignified existence. It is difficult to know precisely what that means, but it is rather clear what it does not mean: the conditions of the circus animals beaten and housed in filthy cramped cages, the even more horrific conditions endured by chickens, calves, and pigs raised for food in factory farming, and many other comparable conditions of deprivation, suffering, and indignity. The fact that humans act in ways that deny other animals a dignified existence appears to be an issue of justice, and an urgent one.

Indeed, there is no obvious reason why notions of basic justice, entitlement, and law cannot be extended across the species barrier, as the Indian court boldly did.

In other news, Ben Folds’ Songs for Silverman has really been growing on me. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. You might note that Ben’s website, in its current incarnation, was the inspiration for the latest design of Manufactured Environments, which may or may not be obvious. Now you know.