You hear that, Mr Andersen?

There's connection, there's completeness

While driving into work today, I hit a nice groove of NZ music - The Muttonbirds' "A Thing Well Made", Cloudboy's "Ahoy", Audiosauce's "Hopsscotch" and Mink's "In My Craft Or Sullen Art". I think the Audiosauce track would make an interesting background to an action scene, by the by.

I find "A Thing Well Made" both creepy and compelling. I'm always a bit wary about pop-psychology, but I've certainly noticed that I have the "completely focus on one thing" attribute that's meant to be common among males, and I can easily understand the compelling fascination of an elegant solution. Then again, maybe women have the same experience - anyone want to comment?

Of course, the type of things that fascinate me are slightly more geeky than guns. Like the Schwartzian transform - it's a very, very cool perl sorting trick:

  @ordered_list = map {$_->[1]}

                  sort {$a->[0] <=> $b->[0]}

                  map {[compute($_), $_]}

                  @unordered_list;

The first map takes the unordered list, and transforms it into an a list of two-element annonymous arrays - the first element is contains the thing you want to sort by, and the second element is the original item. Then you sort by the first element of all these annonymous arrays; and finally, change it back to a simple list (now in the order you wanted) by pulling off the second element of the annonymous arrays.

Obvious once you get it, but it's pretty damn nifty.

***

Heh. You might wonder whether Mink is a NZ band, and then you hear the following lines in "Baby Yesterday":

"I saw my baby yesterday;
She sussed my problem right away."

I should definitely try and track down more Mink stuff - all I have is the For My Mink album. I also want to find the Cloudboy EP that was put out before Down At The End Of The Garden.

I've been listening to For My Mink in the background while I'm working, in case you haven't guessed. The last track on the cd is "Duette", and I've just decided to reproduce the lyrics here. It's a quiet, slightly wistful ballad, with a call-and-response pattern - the lines marked 'B' are sung by both.

M: Sad to say no love left anymore.
W: Loving you, I never stopped.
M:Too many times we've closed that door.
W: I never slammed it shut

B: We should be old enough to know
B: That love will always come or go...
M: Both would be fine.
W: Is this your fantasy, or mine?

M: What kind of love will last?
W: What kind of man are you?
M: Young girl with no baggage from the past.
W: To say the things you do?

B: Or someone old enough to know
B: That love will always come or go...
M: Both would be fine.
W: Is this your fantasy, or mine?

B: Is this your fantasy, or mine?

B: We should be old enough to know
B: That love will always come or go...
M: Both would be fine.
W: Is this your fantasy, or mine?

B: Is this your fantasy, or mine?
B: Is this your fantasy, or mine?

***

As I said on Jenni's blog, I've put the full character sheets up for "A Ticklish Romp". I guess a followup game would be a good way to test out my ideas for an InSpectres/Wodehouse system. :)

Posted by svend at October 16, 2004 2:02 PM