Thank you to all for birthday wishes!

It's a sobering thought, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, that when Phil Ochs (who apparently shares my birthday) was my age he had been dead for seventeen--sorry, eighteen years. We lesser artists face creative burnout with more equanimity.

It's good to have survived another year, and I put it down to the wonderfulness of the Countess, and the love and support of my friends, without whom I would have no friends. Thank you all, and let's hope 2009 is a better year for all of us.

Do what John?

I followed an ad link from Questionable Content (Jeph really needs to start screening his ads) and I found this guy, Perry Marshall. His spiel's pitched quite well, I think, designed to hook in both people who are hacked off with religion and people who are hacked off with orthodox scientism's rubbishing of religion. However, on looking a little closer, I encountered this:

"Gentlemen:

The starting point of this discussion is my central thesis, which is:

1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.
2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.
3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind.

If you can provide an empirical example of a code or language that occurs naturally, you've toppled my proof. All you need is one."

It's good to laugh in the morning, even when it hurts. This argument is logic-proof, isn't it? Any example of a code or a language that occurs naturally (the communication of birds, for example, or cats or dolphins) is included in his first assumptions.

Shame. I was hoping he had something worth looking at.

Interesting offer

e-on Software (not to be confused with e-on the energy company or E-ON the EVE online magazine) are running a free open beta on their current entry level 3D landscape package, Vue 7 Pioneer. The servers were crunged yesterday from people leaping on it, but they seem to be back up now.

You have to have an account with Cornucopia3D (the content provision arm) to take advantage of this offer, but that's free to join as well, and according to the message I got, anyone who participates in the open beta will get a free copy of the full version when it's released. I imagine they're hoping to make their money off people upgrading to the more-bells-and-whistles versions.

As I've said elsewhere, I love Vue with a passion, and having tried to get to grips with Terragen and Blender and other packages, it's still the most user-friendly in my book. I have made some quite nice pictures with the previous version.

Check it out here if you're so inclined.