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A hard sci-fi writer who puts an above-average amount of sci in his fi—I guess that’s what hard sci-fi means—asks his readers to help him explore the world of Multiple Personality Disorder by suggesting hard sci for him to read. One of them points him towards … Batman (“Boff!”, “Crunch!”). How about a mind, a consciousness, a personality that’s geared differently to every different situation? Would such a person be insane, or supersane? The Joker’s shrink thinks she may have stumbled upon the answer:

Batman:
Well, you’ll pardon me for saying so, but your techniques don’t seem to have had much effect on the Joker.

Dr. Adams (Joker’s therapist):
The Joker’s a special case. Some of us feel he may be beyond treatment. In fact, we’re not even sure if he can be properly defined as insane. His latest claim is that he’s possessed by Baron Ghede, the Voodoo loa. We’re beginning to think it may be a neurological disorder, similar to Tourette’s syndrome. It’s quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception. More suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century.

Batman:
Tell that to his victims.

Dr. Adams:
Unlike you and I, the Joker seems to have no control over the sensory information he’s receiving from the outside world. He can only cope with the chaotic barrage of input by going with the flow. That’s why some days he’s a mischievous clown, others a psychopathic killer. He has no real personality. He creates himself each day. He sees himself as the Lord of Misrule, and the world as a theatre of the absurd.

Here’s what Grant Morrison [the author of this dialogue; bc] said about it:
“The idea of Joker’s “super-sanity” haunted me for years and eventually developed into my theories of multiple personality complexes as the next stage in human consciousness development.”

(John Henning quoting Adherents.com at Peter Watt’s blog.)

Saw this in a comment at Engadget: Vista is Ballmer’s way of throwing chairs at people he can’t reach.

(Explanation: Steve Ballmer is the CEO if Microsoft, who is known for throwing chairs through the room in Gordon Ramsay style hissy-fits. Gordon Ramsay is a bum-kneed football-pro turned cook who is known for his tantrums. Vista is the newest version of Microsoft Windows. Every new iteration of Windows, Microsoft manages to leave all the kinks in, and make it so that you need the heaviest pc money can buy to run it. So a lot of people moan that they’re not going to install this new version, and two years on, when everybody has newer, heavier computers, and Microsoft has patched some of the bugs, all the moaners will be running the new version.)

You can download design plans for the Sputnik, the satellite that kick-started the space race fifty years ago today, at the website of the Arizona Model Aircrafters. The plans exclude the instruments; these are perhaps left as an exercise for the reader.

“Territory size shows the proportion of all contributions to international food aid programmes that come from governments there.”

Eamelje.net, where I found the link to the Worldmapper service, displays almost exactly the same map, but there the legend says: “Territory size shows the proportion of all McDonalds restaurants that were open in 2004, that were found there.” (Go spot the differences.)

Memo to self: the five bottles of pickles singing A-ha’s Take On Me a capella were to be found at The PAN, which is now hosted by Youtube.

German paragliding champion Ewa Wisnierska was training for the world championship when she established the world altitude survival record, ascending 8000 meters in 40 minutes of unpowered flight. She had been sucked into a storm that according to one commenter “not even 747s fly through”.

A frost-bitten Wisnierska’s response: “I thanked the angels, but I don’t believe in God.”

Another paraglider was found dead after being caught by the same storm. Wisnierska has gone back to preparing for next week’s world championship.

Reinder introduces me to Numa Numa dancing. I like it. (Yeah, I know I am catching on late. And don’t bring a webcam near me.)

Somebody on lefty blog Sargasso.nl made this hope-inspiring prediction: a summer crammed full with football, lots of beer and the resignation of the cabinet. We already had two parts, today the last third came through. Balkellende II is no more. It’s gone to meet its maker. It’s pushing up the daisies. This is an ex-cabinet.

Met myn zwaard.
Op m’n paard.
En myn helm op het hoofd.
Er op in! En den vyand den schedel gekloofd,
En vooruit!

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Chris Anderson has a couple of posts about a Lego product line called Factory; you download the software, you design your whatever-it-is, then you order the bricks. No more buying more bricks than you need; you get exactly what you want. Apparently that was a bit of logistics problem for Lego at first, but they have now found a way to fulfill your order, your whole order and nothing but your order.

(Oh, by the way, the installer is evil. First you must agree that you cannot use the things you design with the software commercially, then the software sends data about your computer to the Lego death camps. Or something like that.)