R2-D2

So, if I may geek out for a moment (and I may)...

What is the deal with R2-D2? Who designs and builds an entire series of extremely advanced robots, but then entirely denies them any way to communicate with humans? No voice output, no display devices, not even any meaningful status lights.

Sure, I can think of a wide variety of lame excuses to try and justify it, and it does add a certain interesting aspect to the movies, but it's just a bizarre way to design a computing device. It would be like my Palm always communicating with me by Morse code - it might work, but it would still be stupid.

Thought of the day

If Iraq has been a "victory," as the President of the United States of America would have the world believe, could someone please explain to me what a complete and utter fiasco would look like?

Thoughts of the day

Capitalism is simply the principles of evolution applied to economics.

Opinion and belief are just different positions taken entirely on the basis of lack of information.

Opinion and belief may also be (often selfish) positions taken in spite of the facts.

Young-earthers still baffle me. I would go on about evidence supporting a very old Earth, but there's something even more baffling: There is no particular theological reason to believe in a young Earth.

Busy busy

Wow, I didn't post for the entire month of February. Not like it matters, apparently there's not be a single visitor for the past two weeks. Such is the life of a recluse.

In any case, I've been spending my evenings writing a ray tracer. It's an extraordinarily nerdy way to spend one's time, but I have been having a lot of fun, learning a lot of stuff and generally making some good progress.

So, since that has occupied my entire thought process for the past month, there hasn't been much other thinking going on. I could write about the intricacies of the integration of the rendering equation, which is pretty cool, and how photon mapping works, which is also cool, but that will have to wait until I find the time.