Not for the meek, I thought I'd post my philosophy paper on physical vs mental reductivism. It goes into how the mind can be seen as a causally deterministic system. I'm pretty happy with it, though it's not as good as the paper on free will that comes after it.

I'd post that one as well, but I haven't written it yet, so it'll have to wait.

Then, by all means, don't take a peek at the winners of the 5th Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest.

Which reminds me, I have it on good authority that Stewart is making preparations for the second annual 5K Awards. I'd better start thinking about this years entry...

Check out CoolStuffCheap. It's like a cross between an Amway catalog and Thinkgeek.

If you're looking for something to distract you from work for an hour or so, this store is just the thing.

Smarthome.com is a clearing house for all things home and automated. If you buy enough stuff there, you'll never have to go home, having set up automated things to take care of other automated things.

Now I can have my doorbell call my phone, which can turn on my stereo, playing a CD of my voice, which would activate the cat feeder, which would make Kisa run to the food bowl, tripping the IR beam alarm, activating the IR Blaster which would unlock my front door.

Rube Goldberg would be so proud...

This from a CNN story about how courts have dealt with determining voter intent in the past:

"The South Dakota Supreme Court declared a vote "shall be counted if the voter's intent is sufficiently plain." The race was declared a tie. The winner was determined by a game of poker --- which the Republican candidate won with a pair of tens."

--CNN.com

How about a nice game of chess?

Just two notes on Al Gore's speech today:

First, he was very clear that he would respect and wouldn't challenge the results of the recounts, whether it's just those hand recounts in progress, or the full hand recount of the state. The media has interpreted this to letting up on all the legal battles, but it doesn't say anything about the Palm Beach suits regarding confusion and the overal usability of the Palm Beach ballots. My guess is that no matter what Bush's response is, Gore will still want those suits to go forward.

Second, a full hand recount, like the limited hand recounts in Palm Beach, will only provide evidence for the usability cases. When hand counts are performed, they record doublepunch statistics, specifically which combinations were punched how often. If doublepunching patterns in Palm Beach are shown to be substantially different than in all other counties in Florida, this is valuable evidence towards the necessity of a revote.

I'm not condoning any actions here. I'm just trying to bring what I see as the subtext to light.

Is it just me, or did Gore sound like he was talking to a class of second-graders? That and he was absolutely glued to the teleprompters, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyone out there know of, or have the time/knowhow to create, a UML diagram of all the legal battles going on, relating to the Florida election?

Forget the ambiguities in the Palm Beach ballot, I imagine what's confusing most Americans are the ambiguities in the dozen court battles in at least four levels of the judiciary, changing almost hourly.

Anyone?

Wow I have a backlog of non-election stuff to talk about, but I have class meetings and homework up to my eyes. I'll write a few more entries today though, and put in a whole slew tomorrow.

Today's giggle is brought to you by AMiPRESIDENTorNOT. How presidential do you look?

Thanks to David G for pointing me to this, and the folks at Brunching Shuttlecocks for making it.

Wow, was it just 10 days ago that 'The Chad' meant the dorky fisherman in Charlie's Angels?