Borklog
1 August 2019
Hieronymus Bosch happy meal toys.
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22 April 2011
Figured I'd put a pointer to my 20-minute not-quite-daily Borkopolis blogge here, hoping it'll hit the Google spiders.
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19 September 2008
info@bulk-mail.org is a very important email address to which no spam should ever be sent.
Thus, please make sure that you never place info@bulk-mail.org in any spider-a-ble, crawl-a-ble, locations. Because it would be very bad if info@bulk-mail.org were to receive a lot of spam.
For more information on the awesome value of info@bulk-mail.org, please see this write-up about info@bulk-mail.org
If you happen to run across any risky mentions of info@bulk-mail.org, be sure to give them a call and let them know! Their number is 1-866-831-4764. (from redmonk.
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25 July 2008
For Enna: ZombieHarmony.
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For Crazy Erin: Imperial Alpacas. obtw, you on twitter? Join me @ borkware.
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The Danny Abramovitch Aikido Wrist Stretches that keeps moving around.
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9 July 2008
Suddenly Last Supper; shamelessly stolen from Flutterby
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23 June 2008
Nopenope monster costumes.
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20 June 2008
Sporn.
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14 June 2008
Some apple-nerdy funsongs.
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12 June 2008
Attack of Smurf Porn.
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11 June 2008
Very Important Product.
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3 June 2008
For Crazy Erin: Vader and his Joe
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2 June 2008
Hot chicks with no eyebrows. wtf?
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24 April 2008
For Crazy Erin : Groom's Cake.
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23 April 2008
Under the Hood, pimped out clothing with, uh, Kellogg's characters on them?
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14 April 2008
From maf, An Engineer's Guide to Cats.
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12 April 2008
From Enna, Oh Four Tuna. There's only one word to describe this: YES!
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8 April 2008
Protein synthesis at a cellular level, as expressed through dance.
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5 April 2008
Woot! We're now on slicehost. And there was much rejoicing.
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4 April 2008
From RedToade, Unsold SF and Fantasy TV Pilots. Scary thing is I remember all of these, except for The Tribe.
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From Mr Machine Tool : Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir performing a classic soviet-era anthem.
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26 March 2008
From Avi, Baby Got Stats.
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From Grand-Rapper E/D: Disturbing Teddy Bear, looks like you can get your own, too!
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25 March 2008
Stuff White People Like. Got to admit, it's pretty spot-on.
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24 March 2008
Yellow Drum Machine, rhythmic robot.
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22 March 2008
From niroTTorin, Badger Badger Badger, sadly, no mushes or snakerooms.
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21 March 2008
Barack Obama @ google, being asked about sorting algorithms.
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From uncle ghastly, Gay scientists identify Christian Gene.
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17 March 2008
From Enna, a TED talk from a Brain Scientist who suffered a stroke.
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14 March 2008
BLAZEMONGER.
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7 March 2008
Customer Reviews of the Playmobil Security Check Point.
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11 neighbors from hell.
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6 March 2008
From Carl, The Amazing Colo[u]r Changing Card Trick.
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Phun, a 2-D physics sandbox.
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5 March 2008
Darth Vader (and others) rap. Lyrics NSFW.
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4 March 2008
HoffBreeds.
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From cockeyed, Velcro being pulled apart.
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3 March 2008
5 books that can actually make you stupider.
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2 March 2008
Rejected Star Wars Promotional Products.
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29 February 2008
A reason not to use your cellphone during a concert..
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Mahster hadn't heard the song Convoy. Here's a strange video version.
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Superman is Elvis.
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28 February 2008
From Snyder, Food Fight, history of warfare as illustrated by ethnic food products.
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Lego animation of Eddie Izzard's Death Star Canteen, with Jeff Vader.
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27 February 2008
From L^2, National Inconvenience Yourself Day, a "perform common courtesy that seems to be dead dead dead today" day.
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It's amazing how much better Garfield gets when you take stuff away. Garfield minus Garfield is delightfully surreal.
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24 February 2008
From Redtoade, Cat Haiku.
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23 February 2008
From Uncle Ghastly, Creepy Panda Cartoon, like Resevoir Dogs meets David Lynch meets Fish Heads.
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22 February 2008
41 Science Fair Experiments.
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19 February 2008
Hoping to boost the page rank of the National Home Gardening Club review page. We've been getting frequent collection calls from a crew employed by the National Home Gardening Club for charges we don't owe. They, and their collection agency, are a bunch of losers.
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Try a Bacon Float!.
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17 February 2008
NirottoriN had never seen Rock me Amadeus. Poor guy.
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OMG! SHOPPING CARTS!!! wooo! (found from Cockeyed's How much is Inside a Shopping Cart).
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16 February 2008
From Uncle Ghastly, Star Trek: The Sitcom.
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15 February 2008
Farkitrol, it can help with Missing White Girl Syndrome.
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14 February 2008
Terror in the data center, or is it just a FSM manifestation?
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12 February 2008
From NirottoriN (indirectly) : Goatse the Ride.
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Color Pencils Reviewed. With an interface this bad, it must have come from microsoft.
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5 February 2008
The AD&D Book of Sex.
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29 January 2008
For Crazy Erin: Construction of the Millennium Falcon.
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17 January 2008
Lasagna Cat, the most bizarre thing ever.
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23 December 2007
From Bagelturf : Some not-so-usual photos from English Russia. I like the zombie + chainsaw set the best.
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2 November 2007
I like the new look of some of my favorite websites, like Flutterby and Doug E Doug's Blog.
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History of LOLCats.
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19 October 2007
Even though it's an obvious add, the trailer for Fight For Kisses is amusing.
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8 October 2007
From Maf: Dirk Gently on the "radio".
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3 October 2007
For Enna: Richard Scarry Best Word Book Evar, differences between 1963 and 1991 editions.
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28 September 2007
CrazyErin: I was ordered by Miss Deb to not tell you about these (don't scroll to the bottom on the last one).
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Hi Monkey has a Blog.
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24 September 2007
Darth Vader gets the Blues.
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21 September 2007
For Billings: Lunch in the park.
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From billings, for Crazy Erin: Star Wars, the Musical.
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15 September 2007
Infocom Rap.
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4 September 2007
Radiers of the Lost Parts. Crazy Erin, be sure to watch it all the way to the end.
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3 September 2007
Enna pointed me to a new and updated nerd test:
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1 September 2007
Mr. MachineTool went to see Avenue Q, and send me the soundtrack (alas no DVDs). After listening to (and laughing at) soundtrack, I browsed YouTube for AveQ videos, and found Avenue Q Fiddler on the Roof.
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25 August 2007
Death Metal BananaPhone.
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Pictures from a trip to CA.
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23 August 2007
Who's Hoff is it anyway?.
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22 August 2007
Google Sky. It's awesome.
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13 August 2007
Be sure to support the party of family values (via flutterby)
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Bill Atkinson Photography. Yes, the same Bill Atkinson that did Quickdraw and Hypercard.
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8 August 2007
Bizet with Bottles.
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From redtoade: Boot to the Head, anime style.
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1 August 2007
For Enna: zoe needs one.
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31 July 2007
From G-R/E.D., The Dove, a very arty Art film.
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LoTR, Harry Potter Style.
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Terminator vs. RoboCop.
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28 July 2007
Uncle Ghastly sings Deep Space Nine (was Terok Nor).
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23 July 2007
Elvis is Everywhere.
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human beat box extravaganza.
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20 July 2007
And from TVL, Prisoners doing the Algorithm March.
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"Thriller", performed by 1500 Philippine prisoners (a serious WTF from Ooomanskeee)
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19 July 2007
Another vid from G-R/E.D, What if the Beatles were Irish?.
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Not to be out-done, Doug E. Doug sends on Larry's High Silk Hat.
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From GrandRapper E.D. : His Cheeseburger. No Lolcats involved.
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15 July 2007
nope nope nopenopenopenope.
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13 July 2007
From Maf, History Today, a look at romanticism vs classicism.
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12 July 2007
rap country fusion with a hint of metal.
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Fru-Fru restaurant menu generator.
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11 July 2007
Box 350, Boston Mass. 0 21 34!.
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Pictaps, make your own boogying avatar.
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Found via Redtoade, Film Can Cannons. I think folks at the Google Offices need these.
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For DougEDoug: WebCam (safe for work).
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8 July 2007
Three Bass Oboes in one place. L-R, Laurel, Sharz, Steve.
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I don't know if Crazy Erin still reads this, but: WOO HOO!!! WOOOOOOOO! Way to go E.T.! Of *course* we want to play for the state-side ceremony. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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The Humans Are Dead
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27 June 2007
Lego Aircraft carrier.
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17 June 2007
Welcome Back Kotter, updated.
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16 June 2007
More photos. WWDC trip, #2, and Minky Business.
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14 June 2007
Halifax, it's in your lungs.
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10 June 2007
SF Pictures, first batch.
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7 June 2007
From liscio, Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing. 1984's memory hole for photographs gets one step closer.
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How Not to make a Powerpoint.
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6 June 2007
The Dalek Song.
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Falkirk Wheel. The guy who sent it to me said it saved them having to make 40 locks or so.
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4 June 2007
Chicken Dance with giant ducks, led by a hot girl, in a foreign language. Yet disturbingly boring.
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2 June 2007
For Enna: don't be cruel to the undead.
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For Crazy Erin: Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show. Also related. 2 Hot Girls in the Shower, and WWJD.
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29 May 2007
From Teh Moby SpokZor: Intelligent Design, Norse-Style.
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24 May 2007
From Doug E. Doug : UAE building the Death Star.
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From the HappyLemur, The Little Girl and the Sea Monster. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
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23 May 2007
Because everybody needs a place to put their PIN Number.
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21 May 2007
From nirotorin, Death Star Lives!
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20 May 2007
I'm happy that zombo.com is still around.
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From Enna, Build a Cylon Roomba.
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18 May 2007
My Finnish obsession continues. Finnish as a world language. Finnish has longer and better swear words than any other language.
Too bad the Rosetta folks don't have a Finnish product.
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From the Pittsburgh Office Den Mother, Bunny Comics.
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AngryLuke 'accidentally' posted Shave Everywhere.com. Includes music video.
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awalker found a online lolcat creator. I had to make one of Vikki: 
.
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Salvador Dali on "What's My Line".
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15 May 2007
From Dan over at Flutterby: R/C airplane piloted by a teddy bear.
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Purple and Brown, bizarre clamation from Aardman.
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14 May 2007
From Enna: Busy Bath, the greatest bathtub toy of all time.
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13 May 2007
Two new photo ablums up: Morning trip to Freeport, PA, and Morning trips to a local lake.
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9 May 2007
from wm_eddie, Claire de Lune on a Theremin.
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8 May 2007
NiN Closer + Star Trek (TOS).
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7 May 2007
(why do I always think of Chunks when I come across these things.) Big Boat Porn, with a new, improved goatse.cx-style logo.
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5 May 2007
Jesus and the Argonaughts.
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4 May 2007
From a mailing list: "My favorite was when Compaq bought Tandem. They had the choice of either
calling the new company Condem or Tampaq."
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Rands has a piece on doing effective presentations.
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3 May 2007
TURN YOUR HEAD!. Mental health will drive you mad.
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Best Venn Diagram. Ever.
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30 April 2007
From Oster, Flight 405 Landing.
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25 April 2007
Look Around You (#7) - Iron. British science documentary. The pyramid experiment is most amazing.
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Jeffrey Fiedl's Autofocus Test Chart.
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24 April 2007
From G-R/E.D., The Prisonbear I'm not a number, I'm a teddy bear. Along with some explanatory text.
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23 April 2007
I've added my last couple of Germany pictures. The whole set can be found at Frankfurt 1 and Frankfurt 2.
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I love the "I'm in ur machine eating ur bugs" meme of cute kitty pictures. A friend sent me DuneCat, my new favorite.
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15 April 2007
I'm in Frankfurt teaching a class. Here are some photos.
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11 April 2007
Redmonk's incredibly cool sign[b/v]log. Unfortunately I haven't had any one to practice my ASL with for a decade, so I can barely keep up (if that much).
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10 April 2007
Donkey Kong attacks UCSC Engineering Building.
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9 April 2007
ok Gen X'ers. Fill in the blank: "Thank you Easter Bunny! _________ __________". (for a hint, see this)
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6 April 2007
Winnie the (Communist) Pooh. Soviet animation.
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5 April 2007
The Inbox of Nardo Pace, the Empire's Worst Engineer.
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Hey Crazy Erin, you still out there? You *so* need to do this at your wedding.
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4 April 2007
Who knew that eggs could be so... perky?.
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30 March 2007
From froody, You are a pirate. Do your part to fight global warming.
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We've had an influx of wildlife here in Leechburg.
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29 March 2007
Kermit the Frog sings Nine Inch Nails. Includes muppet free-basing.
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27 March 2007
Am I SPOCK or NOT?
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26 March 2007
The real secret behind (or underneath) mouse pointer technology. (takes awhile to load)
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25 March 2007
Hollywood TV Adaptation Shortage Expected Soon!. Although a Holmes and YoYo movie might be fun.
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From Ms. Vious, MnM's Dark Movie Game, complete with Hieronymus Bosch style artwork.
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21 March 2007
Two excellent ones from the Happy Lemur : Death by Caffeine, for tht final, yet wired, exit. And then when you're reborn into this life again to contnue the wheel of suffering, Baby Rock Records, your favorite rock music transformed into baby music.
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20 March 2007
From DanGi, David Lee Roth performing Jump, Bluegrass Style.
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From Mr. Machine Tool, One Man Star Wars. Who needs all those special effects. and actors.
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18 March 2007
Oh my. From Arhuman in #macdev: There exists a Livejournal community dedicated to slash fiction based on the Mac vs. PC adverts.
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17 March 2007
Hick Hop. It rules(tm).
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7 March 2007
From Maf, Baby Go Back, Gilbert and Sullivan style.
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Mmmm.. Chocolate Dalek Cake.. We will exterminate you... deliciously.
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6 March 2007
From SpecialK, Secret Waffle House Communications Channel.
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5 March 2007
For those Kulka, Fran, and Ollie fans, the ultimate Kukla Fran and Ollie Page (which I linked to several years ago) is at a new home and a new domain name.
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3 March 2007
I've added a bunch more pictures to my Santa Cruz Photo Album.
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2 March 2007
Ten Principles of economics, translated.
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1 March 2007
Sometimes the internet is just totally awesome. On Today's ZeFrank, Ze delivers the "Whip Somebody's Ass" video to Ray, and the show is an interview with Ray. He's a fascinating individual, and all of the Stuff the random sportsracers out there did was truly staggering.
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27 February 2007
From a discussion with some cow-orkers, some stuff on (technical) interviewing : why can't programmers program?, including FizzBuzz (took me 2:30 in straight C. I feel so slow) and My Favorite Interview Question, about Monopoly, and of course, SteveY's Five essential phone-screen questions.
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KNEEL BEFORE ZOD.
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26 February 2007
PXR of RogueAmoeba has a nice posting on Experiences in Web Hosting, with major props to Pair.com, a local Pittsburgh outfit.
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From Run/ESD, Britain for Americans. This is Britain. We live here. We are called British people. Find out all about us and the way we live! ... People who don't live in London are called "provincials", and are not allowed to meet the Queen or get married. Their suicide rate is high, and so on.
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From rzolf, Songs to wear pants to, like Exploding Dog meets garage band.
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HiMonkey combines the essence of the Cross Stitcher and the Cardiac Tech, with wonderful results.
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23 February 2007
Astronaut Moonstalker, flash game of questionable taste, but kind of fun.
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20 February 2007
Please... help... can't stop listening. Holly Dolly Song... good lord... mother...
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19 February 2007
Sick of Finnish music yet? If not, here's a musical analysis of some of Loituma's stuff.
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18 February 2007
From Special K, MC Hammer's Blog.
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Contiuning to the Finnish-line, DougEDoug passes on this Video of Loituma doing Ievan Polkka.
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17 February 2007
On May 19, 2006, DougEDoug sent me this rather strange flashimation with a totally infectious tune (danger: contains earworm). I had no idea what it meant - some bug-eyed sucidal chick on a chair twirling some green vegetation, and when you click the pause button, well, what happens to her is what many of us dreams should happen to the teletubbies. Anyway, last night Rzolf sent me LeekSpin, with the same groovy tune. "Where have I heard that before...", and I found DougEDoug's original thing in the BorkLog archives. Looking at page source for leekspin, I saw the name of the flash file was loituma__.swf. I then Yahoo!ed Loituma, and found Wikipedia's page on the leek spin. The tune is a Finnish Folk song, and is available via ITMS (the whole song is fun). I think I must be part Finnish - Sibelius totally rocks, and I still think the Helsinki Complaints Choir song is totally delightful.
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16 February 2007
Human Beat Box + Flute + Inspector Gadget.
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8 February 2007
Quantum Computer demonstration solving NP-Complete problems. Could be cool. I'm hoping it's true, and not a hoax / cold-fusion kind of thing.
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5 February 2007
From Ihab, zoomable UI for product browsing.
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1 February 2007
From Carl, Attractors Flash App. I can play with this thing for hours.
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31 January 2007
Today is National Gorilla Suit Day. 4ACGS!
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A beginner's guide to faking your death on the internet.". Amusingly enough, Zynx on one of the Clan Lord forums faked his own death, and got found out.
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30 January 2007
"Steve Jobs" introduces the iPhone. He's a witch! Burn!
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29 January 2007
"Thriller" Dance at a wedding reception. Sure beats the hokey-pokey and the chicken dance!
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From Alcor, Punch Punch Revolution.
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26 January 2007
From loko: The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this link.
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The Nikon 18-200mm VR (vibration reduction) lens arrived, and I picked it up today. We needed to take some photos of instruments for an upcoming recital (Seton Hill University, Cecelian Hall, Feb 4 at 2:00 - double reeds and friends, including a commissioned piece that includes the NPR theme, Dragnet, rite of spring, DSCH and 4ACGS. Will be over before the superbowl pre-pre-pre game shows). Here some photos with that lens. The light was horrible (late night, with an incandescent lamp and a flourescent lamp), but I am impressed with the results, considering the conditions. The photo with the contrabassoon was with a tripod. The rest were hand-held. Considering some of the exposures were in the 1/8 to 1/4 second range, I must say the VR stuff actually works.
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25 January 2007
Seen in a Google tech-talk : Savage Chickens . Chicken cartoons on post-it notes.
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Spot the Subliminal Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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The 25 Secret Perks of Working at Google, featuring the sophisticated humor that can only come from Cracked.
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Great Photographers on the Internet. Some photographs critiqued.
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20 January 2007
L33t Tiles, scrabble tiles for the script kiddie generation.
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18 January 2007
Star Wars Ep III, the Abridged Script.
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From GR..... E-D it's The...... Star Trek White...... Rabbit Re.....Mix.
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16 January 2007
No Whammies!, story of the dude that studied patterns on a TV game show and walked off with a nice pile of cash.
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Dan Lyke over at Flutterby™ has a pointer to three lunatics go caving in an (presumably) abandoned hydroelectric plant behind Niagara Falls
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Windows 386 Promo Video. After the first minute or so, skip ahead to minute 7, where the production is taken over by crack-smoking monkeys.
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15 January 2007
It's (a petty random) adventure time!
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7 January 2007
Something for Crazy Erin : Star Wars lines improved by substituting the word "Pants".
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5 January 2007
Every Language War Ever.
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From jfpoole, Rosetta Stone for Unix
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Ze Frank on What Starbucks is Really Up To. If you haven't seen Ze's show before, it's a fun daily videolog that gets more interesting and more fun the more of them you see.
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3 January 2007
From awalker : Google Porn: A Play in One Act.
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From a fark.com forum thread. I need to remember this next time I'm at dinner with my "I planted tomato seeds in my garden, but didn't get any monkeys. Evolution is stupid. Intelligent Design Just Makes Sense" acquaintance. *sigh* Once again, for those who missed it the first five billion times: Science is backed up by testable, verifiable evidence, and can be changed if more concrete evidence to the contrary becomes available. Religion is a bunch of guys wearing fancy dresses and telling you that if you don't believe what they tell you to, while handing them over your hard-earned cash, you're going to burn forever.
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Continuing my previous conversation with G-R/E.D., he said "I think you're just the man to write a Lovecraft musical". The poor lad didn't know about A Shoggoth on the Roof. Documentary, and you can get the album.
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A new camera appeared in the household - a Nikon D200 digital SLR. wonderful, wonderful camera. Ken Rockwell has a D200 review page. Beware that Ken is the Philip Greenspun of the Nikon world. Believe half of what you read, and ignore the parts where he gloats about how rich he is. Here are some cute kitty pictures taken on Christmas. The light was horrible - one incandescent bulb, and some dim gray overcast light from outside. This is all hand-held at 1600 ISO. I've been using Aperture as my sorting and post-processing software (minimal post-processing - I was a slide-film kind of guy in the analog days. I hate darkroom activities), and am loving it. More pictures will be going up at my Picasa Web Album as I get around to posting stuff on line.
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From Oster: Do It Yourself iBook Logic Board Repair. Grand_Rapper E/D says "whoa, that's cool. Fix your ibook and make a sacrifice to Baal at the same time!". And eventually the discussion devolved to "South Pacific meets Lovecraft" and "I'm going to wash that unspeakable horror out of my hair"
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Wow. It's been awhile. I've been terrifically busy due to music stuff in december, google stuff, and general sickness brought about by stress caused by the previous two. Hopefully I'll be more interesting in 2007.
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28 November 2006
Just when you thought you were safe from HeadOn! Apply Directly to the Forehead! Atomicbird (once again) comes up with a winner: Headon Auditions (yootoob)
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22 November 2006
Interview with Robert M. Pirsig, the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance guy.
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21 November 2006
NEW BLODE!.
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18 November 2006
Cool! getting into the virtual newspaper about something other than a restraining order. Pittsburgh Post-gazette article about the google office here. I'm ducking and covering during a barrage of nerf darts on the picture abount mid-way down.
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16 November 2006
Kobayashi!, great eating of hot dogs to saving the world he is! (gootoob video)
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14 November 2006
From Enna, Helsinki Complaints Choir with the Suomeksi song of disgruntlement.
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7 November 2006
My prediction for today's election: The GOP will maintain control in the house and senate by a very narrow margin. Santorum in PA will get re-elected, also by a narrow margin. Gasoline prices will start rising again. (I'm very pleased to be 3/4 wrong so far! But gas prices are going up again around here.)
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25 October 2006
A question from GVD:
A friend has a 17-year-old autistic son. Apparently this boy loves his lap top computer. He likes computer based games. The mother does not know if he has every learned any programming languages. He has been"passed through" high school although he probably has failing grades. The primary reason is not being focused on the work, He seems to be very intelligent in some areas. Have you-all any suggestions how the parents could get the boy tested for computer skills. Do you know of any programs--academic, private, commercial,etc for autistic individuals.'?
So if anyone out there in badger-land has any suggestions, please drop me a line at markd@borkware.com, with 'autism' in the subject so I can keep it from being spammified. Thanks!
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16 October 2006
EET WEEL FEET!, my favorite CuteOverload of all time (so far). Although Cats 'n Racks is a close second.
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15 October 2006
From Grand-Rapper E/D : Lego Automatic Weapon.
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12 October 2006
Even though it's not specified whether it is a lesbian unicorn or not, the Avenging Unicorn Play Set looks wholesome fun for the entire family.
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11 October 2006
From Amanda Walker: C-130 lands on Aircraft carrier.
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10 October 2006
Honesty is the best policy at weddings (uTube Video)
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5 October 2006
Let's paint,exercise, and blend drinks!. And the story behind it, and, of course, the let's paint TV website.. Part 3 of blended drinks has a caller singing Doors tunes.
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22 September 2006
Man, wm_eddie rules! He brought me (and jo2y) a stuffed Domo-Kun to the Google Office today. Domo-Kun so totally rocks everything.
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20 September 2006
Just in case you didn't know, David Hasselhoff is the antichrist.
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25 August 2006
From Happy Lemur, one of the reasons the internets are what they are today. Pictures of barfing rainbows. What will they think of next? dancing badgers?
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24 August 2006
From Grand-Rapper E.D.: Badgers on a Plane
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atomicbird found yet another Head on! Apply Directly to the Forehead! remix.
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23 August 2006
from schwatoo in #macsb: Is the meat roasted with 24th USB?, the beef bowl personal computer. Loving the translated machine text! (laughing)
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21 August 2006
New from AtomicBird, MondoMouse, makes your mousing much easier.
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20 August 2006
Bring me the head of Charlie Brown.
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Mr_Noodle redeems himself : Tour of the [lego] Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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From Mr_Noodle on #macsb: Fat Wonder Woman. Really makes one wonder.
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19 August 2006
Saw Snakes on a Plane. It was one of the better unintentional comedies I've seen. Kinda gross in places, kinda dumb in places. Lots of laughter in the theater. Enna: don't see it.
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17 August 2006
Dr. Tran! (some text lettering and voices may be NSFW)
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16 August 2006
Snakes on a Plane, The Daily Show Interview.
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15 August 2006
I weep for the state of science in America.
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12 August 2006
Star Trek Motivational Posters.
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4 August 2006
Reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk.
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31 July 2006
Panexa, ask your doctor for a reason to take it.
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29 July 2006
Wishmaster - misheard lyrics, not quite up there with the llama song, but still fun.
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19 July 2006
From LibraryAlgebrist, a championship I could really get in to.
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18 July 2006
From DougEDoug for CrazyErin, Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager
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15 July 2006
A fun(?) number counting puzzle. You're allowed to edit the URL. It goes to 30. It gets progressively harder. I want a couple of hours of my life back please.
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12 July 2006
From TVL, McD's Sundial.
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11 July 2006
Head On! Apply Directly to the Forehead! (3 minute remix. Gets rather soothing after awhile). Head On! Apply Directly to the Forehead! (some dude's video. I like the toasters.)
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30 June 2006
Hasselhoff doing Secret Asian Man. They've taken 'way your number, and given you a name.
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23 June 2006
Head On, Apply Directly to the Forehead.
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22 June 2006
Some link love for louielouie: WebnoteHappy 1.1 released!. It may sound like Engrish, with Domo-kun about to leap out and make your Hello Kitty wristwatch turn into a Daikon Radish god (?), but it's actually a cool bookmark manager.
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21 June 2006
Pickle Phobia, one of the weirest TV shorts I've seen in awhile.
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A startling epiphany: "roomba, photoshop, rolos" and "klaatu, barrada, nikto" share the same syllable structure. That is all.
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20 June 2006
One of those rare pictures where you're either amused at the cuteness, or amused at the unintentional (I hope) reference to an internet icon.
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Some photos from North Korea. Looking at NK cities in Google Earth is kind of freaky - wide roads and no cars.
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Because I'm always looking for this and never find it in time: I invented photoshop with rolos.
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From Maf, 80's Music Videos.
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19 June 2006
USB Teddy Bear holds data, scares children.
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16 June 2006
From JHughes, Game Over
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10 June 2006
Some pretty good Amazon reviews..
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9 June 2006
Paul McCartney makes mashed potatoes. I like the talking oven mitts.
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7 June 2006
The MonkeyChow diaries.
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3 June 2006
RocketMen: Shatner (which... started it... all oh the... pain), Stewie, and Reboot.
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2 June 2006
yo, def spock jam, or something like that.
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25 May 2006
From Rzolf: BRUBECK MOUNTAIN: A TALE OF TWO EFFETE JAZZ AFICIONADOS TRAPPED WITH ONLY ONE LP IN THE HIGH PLAINS OF WYOMING
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Get some classic Apple ][ reference materials.
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Smells like Teen Ukuleles?
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How to choose a career in medicine.
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24 May 2006
From G-R/E.D, Man Finds Badger Under Bed. (and thankfully it's not a Furry story)
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19 May 2006
From DougEDoug, earworm-worthy tune. Anyone know what the tune is, and if it's available online somewhere?
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16 May 2006
The Search For Spock.
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15 May 2006
From Rzolf, Kitundu, a guy who makes some weird instruments using turntables. Cool quicktime movie of some of the creations.
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10 May 2006
For Crazy Erin: Emperor Palpatine Collect Call movie.
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8 May 2006
Unsuckified versions of the original Star Warts triology to become available.
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6 May 2006
Best Icon, Evar.
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2 May 2006
This is a link to This Is the Title of This Story,
Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself. This is the sentence that thanks mikemorton.
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29 April 2006
NASA Procedure in case Buildign 245 is attacked by Vikings.
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21 April 2006
For Crazy Erin: Snakes on a Plane YTMND. I think you'll like the sound track.
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20 April 2006
From Enna, The Llama Badger Song.
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19 April 2006
Today is bad music video day at the GOOG. Dschinghis Khan - Moskau. ITMS has an 8 minute dance remix track. must.... purchase....
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This one is making the rounds, but I enjoyed its awfulness. I Wanna Love You Tender, the Finnish smash hit video of the 80s.
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18 April 2006
The very best in Twelve Tone Rows. (Although I like the Stravinksy bit)
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16 April 2006
Definitely one of the weirder things I've seen on the net. McGriddle Fan Fiction.
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From the Grobinator, Rube Goldberg Machines.
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15 April 2006
The Easter Bunny Hates You Too.
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12 April 2006
Obligatory link.
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11 April 2006
The Thing in the Crib, or. Cthulhu Cthild Cthare.
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Cool story about a serious Oops made right.
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9 April 2006
Tired of Captchas? Try Kitchas. Pick out three kittens to prove you're a person. CUTE!
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8 April 2006
From the emiloid, Tommy Pederson, the trombone player from Spike Jones (the original one from the early 20th century, not the rapper knock-off).
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5 April 2006
I am spoonman. believe it or not. (site a bit slow)
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4 April 2006
Woo! BethLynn is Sysadmin o' the week now.
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2 April 2006
From Rzolf, SQL on Rails. Taking the VC out of MVC.
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30 March 2006
iGoatse iPod iCase. I'd get one if I didn't have to explain it. "Well you see Pastor, there's this site on the internet..."
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28 March 2006
Billings' Centerfold Sysadmin of the week page.
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23 March 2006
DO NOT PRESS happy fun red button.
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And related to the Starwars transformers. More bizarro starwars merchandise, and bizarro potato(e)head album, including Darth Tater.
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OMFG. Starwars Transformers!.
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I Miss VMS.
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18 March 2006
From Darkover, If your brain ever felt like wool, keep away from these zombies.
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17 March 2006
Lego Aircraft Carrier.
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Live Action Pac-Man. wokka wokka wokka
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16 March 2006
How to Enjoy Sushi, a handy guide for everyone. This is the Samurai way.
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14 March 2006
Another one for Crazy Erin: Ryan vs. Dorkman.
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13 March 2006
Don't know how long it'll be up, but go to google.com and click on the logo. It lives now at mars.google.com.
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10 March 2006
Singing Horses.
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9 March 2006
Important safety tip: don't taser yourself.
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ClikClak, computer-generated cartoon. The ending is sad.
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8 March 2006
How to Survive a Robot Uprising, the author speaks.
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Death to the red meat sellers!! You meat-eaters on Ash Wednesday beware! Your 9/11 is coming! Death to the meat sellers! Death to the meat eaters! Death! Death! Death to those who insult our holy fast!
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From the happy lemur, removing Garfield's thought ballons make Jon seem to be totally insane. But it is one way to make Garfield actually funny again.
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6 March 2006
somewhat controlled helicopter crash. Yikes!
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3 March 2006
Another one for Crazy Erin: Awesome Poster.
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2 March 2006
Praise be to the Hasselhoff. Worth watching all the way to the end.
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From G-R/E.D (indirectly), Fish Emblems. I like the cat one.
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26 February 2006
Andreas Katsulas passes. :'-(
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24 February 2006
From mikeash, Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj .
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For CrazyErin: Elvis Trooper.
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13 February 2006
From Wayne: Serenity Comic with actual muppets. Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4,
Part 5,
Part 6,
Part 7,
and Part 8.
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Cool multi-point touch screen demo(e).
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10 February 2006
Canon Rock, Taiwanese guitar shredder takes on the Tacobell Canon.
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Jesus, the Muscial. Maybe this is a good excuse for the Lutherans I hang out with to start rioting and burninating stuff.
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Found on #macdev: iobrush, super-duper new paintbrush for the new era. Plus a groovy soundtrack.
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6 February 2006
The group of Lutherans I hang out with sent some folks to the gulf to assist in the rebuilding after Katrina. Pastor Ed Sheehan sent back some notes on what they did down there.
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4 February 2006
looks like someone had already done the 501(c)3 thing for "Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra", so we had to change our name. Hopefuly Google will pick up Three Rivers Festival Orchestra instead. An alternate url is 3rfo.org. Be careful going to trfo.org, lest ye be met with criminal death to the face.
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3 February 2006
From Pink: Mr. T - Treat Your Mother Right.
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1 February 2006
YOU MUST OBEY STEELER BABY
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Electric Company coming out on DVD. Sounds like a job for Silent E.
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20 January 2006
From jo2y: badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger ASCII ASCII.
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19 January 2006
From Grand Rapper E.D., Stove burner.com It's like porn for the, uh, stove burner set.
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16 January 2006
Dr. Bronner Quotes. Reload the page! All One or None! Dilute! Dilute! OK!
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9 January 2006
What time is it?. Click on a spot in the world and find out the local time.
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From PeteJ, sheet music from hell.
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4 January 2006
HappyLemur sends along some more Chuck Norris Humor.
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3 January 2006
The Internet is for Porn, a quasi broadway-musical style tune, performed by WoW characters. Some lyrics NSFW.
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2 January 2006
I really don't like "Planet" sites, and aggregated blog communities. It seems like a great idea, but usually things are either dominated by a small number of verbose semi-coherent individuals who I rarely find saying anything that is interesting to me (like WPLUG Planet and Artima weblogs, or the set of blogs added either aren't really on the topic of the collection, and/or are dominated by a small number of verbose semi-coherent individuals who I rarely find saying anything that is interesting to me (like Planet MacDev). I guess some folks find them useful, but I don't. Maybe that's why i'm not on the cutting edge of Web 2.0.
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30 December 2005
Some friends and I are organizing a new group: The Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra. The goal is to create a group where the strong members of local community orchestras (I think there are 4 of them) can come together and tackle works that are larger and more demanding that what can be attempted by any individual group, such as a Shostakovich symphony. If you're interested in joining, please fill out the survey. (and also this is linked so that TheAllMightyGoogle will index us for "Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra")
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24 December 2005
Another diversion for Kaiser Szuhay: I have no idea what this is called (scroll down) but you can have streams of interacting substances. Fire burns oil and Cera (wax I think), plant grows with water. Namekuji is a slug I think, so grows with water and shrinks with salt. It's weirdly fun.
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22 December 2005
I've put up some clips of me (and my peers) playing various instruments.
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From PeteJ, Pimp My Nutcracker.
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19 December 2005
From DougEDoug, The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd, podcast radio programs, chock full of good puns.
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16 December 2005
Surprisingly, a non-obscene link from Angry Luke in #macdev: Cute Overload.
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14 December 2005
I had no idea there were collections of Chuck Norris joes
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11 December 2005
From human39 on #wplug, Battle of the Rubber Bands. Christmas tunes performed on rubber bands. It's delightfully awful.
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6 December 2005
wplug.org is currently down due to a flood in the CMU server room where our machine is located. wunplugged.org is the temporary home until we get the machine back and installed in a place a little less humid.
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29 November 2005
From Darkover, The Lesser Elvis Banishing Ritual. Thank you. Thank you very much.
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28 November 2005
Crazy Erin (probalby) wasn't involved in creating the Wendy's good to be square website, but it sure looks like her work (or at least sound-effects wise, especially the bloopers and the School of Music) Very silly.
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22 November 2005
Remake of The Prisoner?
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18 November 2005
From Kaiser Suzhay, 20 questions. ANIMAL, but for the web.
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16 November 2005
Mr. T. to lend voice to GPS navigation system. The "Mr. T. talks trash to the driver" clip is hilarious.
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15 November 2005
Many folks have heard through the grape vine that I might be working at Google. It's true. I started today, spending the week out in Mountain View CA for Corporate Disorientation and Assimilation. It's going to be so nice having a regular paycheck again. wooo(t)!
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14 November 2005
Putting this here because it's so hard to find otherwise: Apple Store Finder.
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13 November 2005
If Dr. Seuss wrote for ST:TNG.
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10 November 2005
Hello Kitty's Dark Side.
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9 November 2005
YTMND described in mainstream press.
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6 November 2005
Flutterby pointed out a Cockeyed.com blurb on The Military Uses of Silly String.
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3 November 2005
From Ooo-Man-Skeee, An Eye for Annai. Pleasant gentle little animation.
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2 November 2005
Human39 is asking the internerd to Help Me Pay Off My House. just $1 from 32K visitors is all it takes. I know him in RealLife(tm), and he's a good guy, well worth a buck or two.
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1 November 2005
From DougEDoug, Muppet Central Radio.
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31 October 2005
From Crazy Erin (yes! she's aliiiive!) It's a big ad. Carmina Beeeer-ana.
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30 October 2005
Babylon 5 Scripts is open for business. The FAQ is amusing in places.
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28 October 2005
From Dr. Jones(bio), Gangsta Rap Coloring Book
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From Billings, RAID explained in pictures.
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By popular request, here is my Gig Calendar for the next couple of months.
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24 October 2005
Babylon 5 Scripts, 14 volumes of JMS's B5 scripts.
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23 October 2005
TV Cream's Top 100 Toys, blast from christmas catalogs past.
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Found on memepool, GridGame, kind of like Conway's Life, but different. So far my high score has been 384, but I haven't been trying too hard. bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop.
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21 October 2005
I'm in the Silly Valley (Mt View) now. Quite a fun "drive" down 101. I'm in room 204 for folks who want to hang out and chat friday evening (say starting ~7)
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From a thread over at flutterby, Baby Got Back, the white-bread version.
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19 October 2005
Pittsburgh Unprepared for Full-Scale Zombie Attack.
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18 October 2005
Giant Safety Penguin.
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I'm going to be in the Silly Valley later this week talking to some clients. My friday evening is free (the 21st), and I figured I'd hang out at the hotel. Anyone who would like to drop by and geek-chat is welcome to come. I'll be at the Hotel Avante, 860 E. El Camino Real Mountain View, California 94040. Say after 7:00, either in the room or in the bar/lounge if they have one.
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We had our massive concert weekend. Here's an mp3 of the Muczynski Quintet for Winds, movements 2 and 1 (in that order), featuring our quintet (I'm on bassoon, the spousal over-unit on oboe)
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15 October 2005
Gig Alert: I've got two concerts coming up this weekend (for any readers in the Pittsburgh area). The first is this evening (Saturday 15th), the Edgewood Symphony is performing at East Allegheny High School, 7:30. Highlights include Dvorak's "New World" Symphony and Tchaikovsky's March Slob.
Tomorrow afternoon (Sunday 16th) our woodwind quintet (Zephyrs) is joining with another (Aeolian Winds) to do two Dvoark pieces (Czech Suite, and the Serenade for Winds) at 3:00pm at First Baptist Church in Oakland. It's part of their Sanctuary Concert Series. This one is free admission
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12 October 2005
Trainer for StarWreck. Trek meets B5.
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From the Happy Lemur, The Airline Screening Playset, the review.
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8 October 2005
From #macdev IRC.
2:45<l33pofaith> hi, how do u fix stl on gcc 3.3 for panther? it seems to broken in my machine
2:45* mikeash wonders how anybody could expect a person to be able to answer that
2:46<l33pofaith> :)
2:46<markd2> we look for things
2:46<mikeash> things that make us go!
2:46<markd2> you are smart
2:47<arwyn> you can make us go
2:47<mikeash> I never realized that episode was a tech support allegory before
2:48<arwyn> we are not smart 8)
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From boingboing, Learn to make a FSM Brooch. The original is available on ebay.
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7 October 2005
Bookmark for me: Contrabassoon Technique.
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5 October 2005
If you've already seen Serenity, be sure to check the Screenit! review and make sure you saw everything. At least 1 "s" word, 9 hells, 5 damns, 4 asses, 1 crap, 3 uses of "Oh God" and 1 use of "God" as exclamations.
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3 October 2005
From TSFNKP: iPod, Nikola Tesla Edition.
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1 October 2005
From G-R/E.D. - Bunnies doing Alien in 30 seconds, and Highlander. Also coming up at Angry Alien are War of the Worlds (1953) in October and Star Wars in December.
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Just came back from seeing Serenity. Wow. What a kick in the head. If you're a fan of the series, make sure you don't get any spoilers before seeing it.
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29 September 2005
Now *this* is a feel-good family movie I want to go see. Shining!.
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26 September 2005
Had a nice time with some Visix folk this weekend at Andrew-n-Lisa's wedding. In browsing websites, I came across MrXine's How to win technical arguments.
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Pets in Uniform.
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10 September 2005
From MamaJo, UFO Sightings Maps and Statistics.
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9 September 2005
Flying Spaghetti Monster, the game.
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6 September 2005
Pizza Country, weblog from a pizza place.
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5 September 2005
Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow.
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4 September 2005
For Crazy Erin: I've got a bad feeling about this. Includes a quick remix at the bottom.
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3 September 2005
Cat in a sink. Cat in a sink. What do you think, about a cat in a sink?. Iguana in the Sauna to come next?
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2 September 2005
He Piddies da Foo Who Don't See Rocky XXVIII VI..
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From Rzolf, Kid Beyond's Ableton Live commercial. Human Beatboxes rule(tm). Tribe TV spot with K.B. too.
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1 September 2005
N'Orleans, Before and After.
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30 August 2005
The Mercury probe took some movies of an Earth fly-by. I hope everyone was smiling and waving at the camera.
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Uncle Bob gives Joel the smack-down.
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25 August 2005
A reference nobody will get, Jesus Deer and Jesus Deer Ornaments.
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From Ms. Vious, Cyborg Name Generator. DougEDoug's Cyborg name is a bit on the racy side.
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19 August 2005
From BoingBoing, odd Japanese music video. The music is pretty atrocious, but I like the slo-mo photography.
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From rzolf, Photographing flying insects using "lasers".
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17 August 2005
From billings, Evangelical Scientists refute gravity with new 'intelligent falling' theory.
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From MicroWayne, Google Maps and tracking Hubble and ISS.
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13 August 2005
Play Doom on an iPoodle.
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12 August 2005
From ScottK, Ethel, an insane avant-rock string quartet.
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The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox, or how to fit three bugs into 512 bytes (yes, bytes) of security code. LuxuryYacktman also has a commentary.
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whoa. rzolf blogstyles.
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From Enna, Specialized Weirdo Bikes. There's no April 1st date on the article, so they might be legit. Pretty interesting looking to say the least.
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11 August 2005
From Lupines in #wplug: NetBSD to power toaster. (and by toaster, that's not a cute description of a style of computer. It's actually a toaster.)
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Ms. Vious posted a link to Two Lumps, online comic about a pair of cats, one smart, and one not-so-smart. Cat people will probably enjoy it.
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8 August 2005
Mr. T. and Me, collections of Mr. T. stuff.
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6 August 2005
Old-school mac guys probably remember The Dogcow. Some may even remember TechNote #31 that was the debut of Clarus.
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From T.Trussell, Rime of the Ancient Macintosher, websites running on 68K macs.
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Cave art hoax hits British Museum. Trolley trolley trolley get your adverbs here.
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4 August 2005
The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Makes more sense than Scientology. I really dig the global average temperature vs. number of pirates graph.
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Putting this here so I don't forget about it. FileLight, a pretty cool disk space consumption visualizer. In my copious spare time I want to adapt this for OS X.
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First family of Windows Vista viruses unleashed.
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3 August 2005
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?. A list of Pinky's various responses to that interrogative.
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2 August 2005
Found on GoogleSightseeing, Sprol (probably pronounced "sprawl"), "Negative eco-tourism from Orbit". Today's entry is on Three Mile Island.
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29 July 2005
From Rzolf, We support the guy in china who sells the idiotic magnets.
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28 July 2005
For all you Zombie-fans out there, Undead Focus Group Picks Names For Microsoft Technologies.
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Stolen from Flutterby, Alternative versions of the "Don't make me come down there. -God" billboards you see littering the countryside.
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27 July 2005
For Crazy Erin: Model Star Wars Ships That FLY!
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From Enna, The 3 variable Funny Test. I am *The Ham* (big surprise there). Your humor style: CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT.
Your style's mostly goofy, innocent and feel-good. Perfect for parties and for the dads who chaperone them. You can actually get away with corny jokes, and I bet your sense of humor is a guilty pleasure for your friends. People of your type are often the most approachable and popular people in their circle. Your simple & silly good-naturedness is immediately recognizable, and it sets you apart in this sarcastic world. . Bork Bork Bork.
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22 July 2005
We're watching up the CattleCar Galactica DVDs, and every now and then we come across an actor that looks familiar. Doing that we found BattleStar Concordance. Whole lotta stuff there.
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20 July 2005
For folks who enjoy my quotes file, Cluefire and Damnation.
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19 July 2005
I may be a bit late to this party, but nirotorin passed along Star Wars Episode III : A Lost Hope. I especially like the final Jar-Jar scenes.
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18 July 2005
From Rzolf, The Hipster PDA, the ultimate accessory for your Getting Things Done(tm) lifestyle. Plus, it uses no batteries!
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16 July 2005
Found over in Vinoodle's World, he has a link to Google Pedometer. Not an official Google product, but something using the google maps API. It lets you chart a course (like for walking, running, or cycling) and it will tell you the mileage. Start recording, then double-click the spots to go from pointA to pointB to.
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From G-R/E.D. banana mania. That banana guy really gets around.
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14 July 2005
Carter: drop me a line to markd@borkware.com. I don't have your current email.
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Sarah Rush, the "Launch When Ready" woman from Battlestar Galactica.
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12 July 2005
Found over in the land of Flutterby, While my Ukulele Gently Weeps. I had no idea the Uke was a legitimate instrument. This is definitely worth a listen to.
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11 July 2005
In a fit of ego, I decided to google for "markd", and found markd.net, website for a gospel rock band. I figure it's a shortening of marked (by God). Guess I'll have to get a T-Shirt.
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From davb, An addictive graph-based game.
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Kaiser Szuhay has mentioned (in person and via AIM) the hill sprints that come from Matt Furey. I've found a couple of articles of Furey's: Getting started with Hill Sprints and Hill Sprints Get You Fit Fast.
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From Reflex_ibook in #macdev, Color photographs from World War I.
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for emacs folk: dav[e]b in #openacs pointed out IswitchBuffers, an alternative to C-x b. (I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising)
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5 July 2005
I'm on my first real vacation (that is, no work being done, no concerts being played, no meetings or other general obblgations) in forever. We're down in Deep Creek MD with 6 friends (The "Navy Crew") just hanging out, eating, and not doing much of anything. The house we're renting only has dialup (and the tiBook + AOL isn't cooperating) so we're nerding out at a coffee shop with free WiFi(tm). While here, DaveB passed on The Ridiculously Thorough Guide to Making Your Own Pizza.
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1 July 2005
Anyone speak Slavic? (I think). Redtoade found this quote attributed to him: "Ne smeta me kad ljudi prave gre?ke, samo bih ?elio da prave neke nove" and we're curious what it might mean.
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redtoade, who never gushes about technology, gushes about the emacs planner mode. planner mode on the emacs wiki and webpage / weblog of an enthusiastic fan and current maintainer..
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28 June 2005
A discussion in #macdev wandered over into the world of global thermonuclear destruction (and whether it would make a good game). It reminded me of the Nuclear War card game we played a *lot* in high school. "Got change for 50,000 people?"
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27 June 2005
From AngryLuke on #macdev, The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection, only $8,000 (down $13,000) for 1802 books (700 lbs shipping). Plus if you get the Amazon Visa card, it's an additional $30 off! Woooo! I wish I had the time / money / bookshelf space to get this.
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24 June 2005
The universe is a sick and demented place. Here I am, trying to wean myself off of HFCS-based caffeinated fizzy drinks (the Core Class is over, so I don't need to burn the midnight nose grinding getting stuff done). So what happens? After 30 years of *never* winning anything from "look under the coke cap for a prize. You have a 1 in 10billion chance of winning anything" promotions, I have, in a week's time, won two one-liter bottles of fizzy product.
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22 June 2005
From Rzolf, Tom Cruise Kills Oprah (quicktime). e-meter not included.
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20 June 2005
From Rzolf, one of the WEIRDEST craigslist postings i HAVE SEEN in quite a WHILE.
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15 June 2005
Steve Jobs commencement address.
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11 June 2005
From ScottK: M.C. Escher meets Photoshop.
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9 June 2005
Ms. Vious had a link to a silly "what kind of woodland creature are you?" online test. I answered honestly, and ended up with an unsurprising result (but I have no idea what variable 1 is)
Badger
56% Beast |
| You are a badger. You are quite shy but probably have lots of friends. You may also have a bad temper. |
 |
My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: | You scored higher than 0% on variable 1 |
|
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6 June 2005
Too bad there's no Domo-kun merchandise to be found.
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31 May 2005
Also from Rands, DasKeyboard, unlabeled, totally black keyboard. I want one. It goes to eleven.
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From Rands, Life in Stunt City (movie)
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30 May 2005
mp3 time: Bye Bye Blues, with the Westmoreland Symphonic Winds Jazz Band. I've got the solo spots at the beginning and at the (very) end.
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From human39, po(o)p vs. soda. I call it "coke".
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29 May 2005
Found on nutters, FlyGuy, one of the cooler interactive flashimations I've seen in awhile. Reminds me of the old VideoWorks cartoons made on the original macs.
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27 May 2005
From daveb on #openacs, Turn a can of Guinness into a Popsicle.
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26 May 2005
iGuy for your iPod. They should make a brown furry iDomoGuy version.
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Yet Another Wiki, this time at memory-alpha.org . Star Trek (TOS) Episodes, plot summaries and behind-the-scenes goodness.
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CrazyErin caught me with this one. The LJ Drama Generator. Put in your LJ name (or someone you know), and crawls the friends list. Then it plugs them into some pre-canned, yet realistic angsty teen drama. This one was generated using redtoade:
mom was totally unfair to me the other day and now now I can't go to the mall with people :-(.
Oh and edibiase added another meme to their journal. GOD I HATE THAT!!!1!one!
Which is hilarious imagining that coming from the RealToade.
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24 May 2005
I was chatting with CrazyErin this evening, when I used the word "Franglais". I was surprised the Tigger smellchecker didn't flag it. Doing the cool cmd-control-d over the word shows that the Tigger dictionary has it defined. "a form of French using many words and idioms borrowed from English." (which it is)
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17 May 2005
For domo-kun, A Domo-kun iPod (from boingboing)
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13 May 2005
Spotted in a comment on Fark:
Wendy's: What happen ?
Manager: Somebody set up us the chili.
Ayala: We get finger.
Wendy's: What !
Ayala: Main lawyer turn on.
Wendy's: It's you !!
Lawyer: How are you gentlemen !!
Lawyer: All your bucks are belong to us.
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8 May 2005
While working on my intro-to-programming eBook, I needed to double-check the spelling of "DeLorean" (really!). IN the course of doing doing that, I came across DeLorean.com. There's actually New Products coming out of DeLorean Motor Cars (well, OK, it's replacement parts and books), but it's still kinda cool. Plus there's a virtual warehaus tour, and restoration services. You can also order a refurbished car online.
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The Expressionless Girl (flashimation, annoying soundtrack)
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7 May 2005
Judge Kozinski of some federal court, is apparently known (amongst other things) for having amusing court opinions. this one has ~200 movie titles interwoven amongst the text.
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it's 5/7/5
majesty of short poems
Pooh says "tiddly-pom"
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Satan devalued by 50. 616 is the area code for Grand Rapids, Michigan. hmmm....
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6 May 2005
Barbie USB Drive.
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John C. Welch posts some mild-mannered ponderings about the Star Wars saga. I hates Lucas! I hates it forever!.
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5 May 2005
DougEDoug reminded me that today is 5/5/5, which would be 0.2. Wheeee!
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2 May 2005
Seeking to debase all that is beautiful and good in this world, I have created The Turchno Dance, techno-dance-remix of Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca", based on an arrangement for flute and bassoon. I *heart* Gradjeband.
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29 April 2005
Kitten War!!. May the cutest kitty win.
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25 April 2005
Found on Fark, Ship of Fools : The Mystery Worshipper, is a lot like venerable WASAW: Writers and Artsts Snacking at Work. Insted of reviewing pre-packaged snack foods, the Mystery Worshipper reviews a church service.
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21 April 2005
Keep Breathing, David Fetter (composer and trombone player) has some posture and breathing exercises for the wind player, from a trombonist's point of view.
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20 April 2005
For Mdme SockPuppet, and those with iPod accessories and time on their hands, iPod-Sock puppets.
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Question for folks out there in ('doze)XP-Land. A friend of mine is looking for a program that will display a specified set of images as the desktop background. He's a photographer (nature / flower) wanting to use a set of desktop images as a promotional vehicle. Even better would be a package that would let him pack the pictures plus the background changer into one app. Let folks see the pictures but not print them (or at least print them easily). Thanky in Advance.
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19 April 2005
Just a reminder, that "hippopotamus" is the musical subdivision for 5.
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18 April 2005
I've never been one for ant colonies, but this one is amusing. Not only is it Mac OS X Aqua-colored, it has a great last line: ANTS ARE NOT INCLUDED! You will find a form included so that you can order ants for delivery via mail.
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DougEDoug passes on this essay on the joys of shaving. I'm not sure if the badgers are damaged in harvesting their bristles. I'm presuming that happens before the badgers have Linux installed on them.
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Chopin vs. Liszt. "So, next time if you want to bad mouth Liszt relative to Chopin, you better shut up!"
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Ok, this is incredibly cool. Trent Reznor (a.k.a. Nine Inch Nails) has made a GarageBand file of a track off of the next album, (The Hand that Feeds) so you can play around with all the Stuff of the song. It actually works pretty well on my slower, not-so-large-memory iLamp.
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17 April 2005
From Enna for CrazyErin: One Man StarWars.
Three movies, one hour, one man enters, two men leave (or something like that).
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An oldie, but a goodie: KHAAAN!. Happy Lemur also sent along a link to No Kill I. (if you get the reference, I'm very proud of you), a trekkie punk band in Sacremento. Check out their mp3 files. Sound almost like a cross between the Dead Milkmen and Green Jello.
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15 April 2005
RedMonk has had a SiteLight (pretty cool interviews with folks who run Significant Blogstyle sites), including Rands In Repose. Yes, this is the Rands from JerkCity, but Rands In Repose is more of a technical / technical engineering journal. Something like JWZ's journal, but not nearly has burned-out and bitter.
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14 April 2005
From DougEDoug, manifesto from the Unitarian Jihad. My (First Reformed) Unitarian Jihad Name is "Brother Fist of Patient Freedom."
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13 April 2005
Three words you don't hear together often enough: Paper Mache Elvis.
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Acoustic Radar, some pretty cool sound-gathering devices used to pinpoint planes in flight. I like the Japanese tuba-thing.
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Rzolf is the wisest person I know. From AIM today:
so i guess i better re-iterate my top 5 things I hate about open
source anything
1. gushing about some pile of source code
2. people who post to the blog/forum with comments like "i would
LOVE to see this feature. I CAN'T WAIT!" (just add the feature
yourself, doorknob)
3. the previous poster who spent 20 minutes writing a blog entry
about a feature that could be implemented in an hour
4. weird posts about "what are we going to do to MARKET this?"
market what? get more people to download? so you have a bigger
group of people to give you headaches while you make no money?
5. junior bureaucrats who join in because they want to start forming
"governance" bodies and other unnecessary time wastes
and finally
6. Me aiming a top-5 list when i could be doing something worthwhile
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12 April 2005
This is pretty cool. CraigsList + GoogleMaps == Neat Compartment Finder.
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11 April 2005
I sometimes read the stuff at SomethingAwful, usually their reviews and Photoshop contests, but tend to just bleep over their Long Involved Writings (they're pretty tedious) but this one, SmartGuy smacks down idiot lawyer is fun reading. Much like Dan Lyke's "Claim of Ownership" incident.
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Roast Beef is trapped at the Bead Shop. Sometimes I get this way when I get taken "antiquing".
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And in retaliation for "Cows With Guns", Buck Howdy (creator of "Buffallo Bob only ate Baked Beans") sends me a link to his Hey, You, Get off of my Cow. Mooooo!
"]:o_
|O =
|_o=" -- Smiley Cow
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10 April 2005
This afternoon we're wrapping up a run of Camelot. Last night ocming home, the Spousal Overunit & I were remembering the shows that we've played (in the pit) over the years. Here's my list:
- West Side Story (4 diffrent runs)
- Oklahoma
- South Pacific
- 1940's Radio Hour
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (two runs)
- Fiddler on the Roof
- Into the Woods
- Yeoman of the Guard (Gilbert and Sullivan)
- The Mikado (G & S too. 9 shows in 7 days. took forever to de-tox)
- Gypsy
- Zorba
- Wizard of Oz
- George M.
- Here's
suck Love (a musical verson of Miracle on 34th street. it fills a much-needed void)
- Camelot
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8 April 2005
In retaliation for the Buffalo Bob track, G-R/E.D. passes on Cows with Guns flashimation.
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Silly mp3, Buffalo Bob only ate baked beans.
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From TVL, School House Rock meets technical descriptions of hard drive technology.
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Google Sightseeing, using the cool Google maps satellite marklar.
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7 April 2005
Woo! Fo da' Krazzle Erinnle, Iced Out Gear Belt BucklaZ, pre pimped-out for yaZ.
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HappyLemur posted a kerneltrap article on No More Free BitKeeper.
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For folks who use Webalizer, you might want to check out human39's Ultimate Webalizer.conf Project.
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5 April 2005
New Hewlett-Packard workstation. I know intel processors tend to run hot. I guess this is a way to harness that wasted energy for Good.
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Whoa. New DJ Format Video, involving a Rapping Video game. Nothing can top DJ Format's Breakdancing Plushies.
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4 April 2005
Domo-Kun sends along the Perry Bible Fellowship weekly comic. Not really Bible or Fellowship related, at least as far as I can tell. (maybe it's some weird Lutheran denomination. Those guys get pretty wacky). "People either fall down on the floor laughing or go 'I don't get it'"
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For Crazy Erin: We-Be-Toys / Star Wars Ep III Midnight Madness.. Includes a giant lego wookkeeee (or however the hell you spell it) and DARTH TATER. I want one.
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1 April 2005
From billings, showing that no "good" deed goes unpunished, List of Schiavo Donors to be sold to direct-mailing firm.
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31 March 2005
Review / analysis of Achewood from the Ruminator.
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found on BoingBoing awhile ago, U.S. Pennies as bridge and dome construction.
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From HappyLemur, gotta love local PA state representatives. (sigh). caught with a fax machine of death using a facsimile weapon of mass destruction.
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OK, this is the first Achewood painting I'd really like to have. Not $152 worth, would still like it. (misses the Apple //c)
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New Kitten Video at RatherGood.
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30 March 2005
Cockeyed.com compares prices between Wal-Mart and Target. "I really tried to be as impartial as possible, but with statistics, it is almost impossible to describe a situation without a bias."
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From Enna, Cavalcade of Bad Bridal Fashion.
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29 March 2005
From jo2y (yay! He's alive again!) Trashcade, the ultimate do-it-yourself home arcade cabinet. Even *I* could make one of these.
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28 March 2005
From CCoxIII, passive-aggressive punctuation skills.
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25 March 2005
Here's one for Vinoodle: Ultramarthon guy.
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23 March 2005
Found over on This is not your practice Blog, The Illustrated Acme Catalog.
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From the HappyLemur, Solar Death Ray.
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22 March 2005
From Porruka, Swansong's Quotes. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards; for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup!"
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18 March 2005
From G-R/E.D, on location in Paris. Big Bottom, performed by Edmund Welles, bass clarinet quartet (!?)
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17 March 2005
Batman: New Times, in stunning rendered Legomation. Starring Adam West as Bat Man (of course).
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16 March 2005
From Porruka, John Cleese's PSA for the Institute for Backup Trauma.
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14 March 2005
From redtoade, Legostar Galactica, Lego-based web comic.
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Happy 3/14, PiDay.
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12 March 2005
Chocolate Dieties. God(s) never tasted so good. I still think if the Xtian congregations would use Thin Mints and milk instead of that bread and wine stuff, they'd have much better attendendance. Especially in the dry spell between Thin Mint availability.
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8 March 2005
I was AIMing with T3h M()by FaulKN()rz about William Faulkner, and the Faulkner class I took in college (and how the only way I passed it was that the professor was good friends with our family. I was way out of my league in a junior-level English course), and he came across a hypertext-enabled version of The Sound and the Fury (a.k.a. the Hound and the Furry). One of the books I actually enjoyed. That, and As I Lay Dying. My Mother Is A Fish.
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5 March 2005
Eddie Gonzalez has set up Planet WPLUG, an aggregate weblog of WPLUG folks.
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4 March 2005
Happy 03/04/05.
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28 February 2005
World Jump Day. If 600 million people jump up and down at the same time, we can move the Earth's orbit.
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Via Clark, bbum puts spam to good use by using it to increase the entropy of /dev/random.
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Query Letters I Love, query letters pitching ideas to the Hollywood machine. Sadly, many of these ideas are better than what actually gets produced.
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26 February 2005
I like this spiffy knife rack.
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25 February 2005
Shadrach, Nasdaq, and Abednego.
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Wooo! I got interviewed for the the MUGCenter (Mac Users Group), on the topic of CocoaHeads, the mac programmer's group out this direction.
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23 February 2005
Webalizer under attack. Internet Goons for some reason sticking naughty words so they'll appear as webalizer referrers.
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22 February 2005
Kaiser Szhuay has been working on a website for The Classical Dance Alliance for quite awhile now, giving the CocoaHeads Crew a sneak preview as things develop. He's got a lot of nice stuff there (including Quicktime VR models of various aspect of dance)
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Essential 50 Archives: The Most Important (computer) Games Ever Made. A critical analysis of 50 different classic (and modern) computer games. I expect to lose a lot of time here.
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21 February 2005
From ooo-man-skeeee, Yurts R Us, featuring a very retro-90's design. From recepit to cover in 5-6 hours. That's pretty cool. And as they say, "If you are not in a Yurt, you must be Square." If I win the lottery, I want to live in a yurt on the farm.
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17 February 2005
Rzolf pointed me to the jwz essay Groupware Bad. He's got a bunch of other amusing rants. I enjoyed The "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" model of software development., having witnessed a servicable (and profitable, if not particularly pretty) toolkit undergo that process twice.
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Mad Props to Crazy Erin - gradumatated from the Military Language Institute (Mandarin Chinese, with proficiency - extra buckage for the rest of her career due to her insanely hard work), and will be stationed in Hawaii (awwww, poor thing). As a parting gift, she gives us The Llama Song (flashimation)
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16 February 2005
Something for Redtoade (And Enna too): Zombie Risk.
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From Teh Moby SwitChZ()r, Dinosaur math jokes. Doesn't have my favorite: "What's the integral of 1 / cabin d(cabin)?"
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14 February 2005
I love my Mac, behold the power of GarageBand.
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To complement your Hello Kitty Tarot cards, there is now a Hello Kitty Crop Circle. Rzolf surrenders.
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11 February 2005
From DougEDoug, evolution of a wikipedia page (flash movie)
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Found on memepool, Baby Name Explorer. See how baby names have waxed and waned over the course of time. Unfortunately "SuperFly!" isn't in there.
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From DougEDoug, When computerized Forcasts go wrong. It is interesting that the weather channel is using more than 16 bits to store a temperature value. Never know when it's going to get above 65535 degrees.
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10 February 2005
From Can0Beans, PostSecret, people mail in their Innermost Dark Secrects on a postcard.
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8 February 2005
My college bud Brad Brighton has started posting some of the fiction he wrote in the mid 90's. One of my favorites is Food For Thought. Now you know where "Porruka" comes from.
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7 February 2005
Cool digital movie of the mars rover mission.
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5 February 2005
From Duncan the Hutt(y), Computer Language Lineage Timeline.
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Found on boingboing, My Little Golden Book About ZOGG, also known as The Cuddly Menace. Only 57 more years my friends.
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4 February 2005
The Infinite Cat Project. Cat N is looking at a picture of cat N - 1.
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Remember the Thoracic Cavity Cake? They've now done a Zombie Cake. MUST EAT, uh, cake.
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From Chunks, Design for Chunks. Airline "comfort bag" art project.
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3 February 2005
The alarm clock that physically drags you out of bed.
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Hello Sushi.
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29 January 2005
From billings, an inspirational(?) song, sung by William Shatner.
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Back in the mists of Internet Time, the SpinnWebe folks ran The Dysfunctional Family Circus, an early db-backed website collaboration kind of thing, where a Family Circus cartoon was shown (without caption), and the regular readers submitted their captions. The funniest ones were then selected and presented for the world to enjoy. It got taken down at the request of Bil Keane (who apparently is a pretty cool guy). I stumbled across a partial archive of the DFC. Some cartoons aren't there, but some are.
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27 January 2005
I want some. Hieronymus Bosch action figures. (from boingboing)
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26 January 2005
All the bacon in the world couldn't save you now. (flashimation)
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25 January 2005
Real Calvin-n-Hobbes snowmen. And speaking of Calvin and Hobbes, The Complete Tome coming out. Now to find a hundred bucks or so to spend on it...
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24 January 2005
Fark Photoshop of the New Darth Tater.
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I just made the pilgramage to my local independent mac retailer and picked up the latest iLife and iWonk. Pages is pretty cool. More like MS Publisher than MS Word, but I think it'll be perfect for making the Spousal Overunit's charts. The new Garage Band is pretty cool, as is the new "Orchestral Instruments" add-on pack. Some of them are pretty amazing (here's a sample from a demo file) The pizzacato strings sounds dead-on, as do the bassoons. The clarinet is a bit weak, and the English Horn is horrible. Luckily it's easy to tweak things so folks won't notice.
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22 January 2005
Elvis needs (Lego) Boats
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20 January 2005
From Teh Moby MacnBakker, CSS Zen Garden, retrostyles. Behold the power of CSS with no taste.
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18 January 2005
From teh m0by k0m1C, Josh Reads the comics so we don't have to.
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Important Hardware Clarification on the MacMiniMacThing.
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17 January 2005
Now dat billings he be a funky guy, passing along da burgerz and how to fry, Fo' workin' at Wendys gotta be all dat, so here is your training, done in da rap.
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14 January 2005
For Crazy Erin: Darth Tater.
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13 January 2005
A Fast Fracture Method for Exploding Structures. Who says computer science can't be fun?
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11 January 2005
From oo-man-skee, Apollo Guidance Computer Replica. Build your own hardware and software. Saturn-V plans not included.
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8 January 2005
Rzolf has been listening to books by Malcolm Gladwel on some long-haul cross-California driving, and recommends them, so I'm posting this here so I don't forget.
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From DougEDoug, Place the State game. Growing up, we had a state map jigsaw puzzle of Arkansas, which each of the counties, the major highways, major towns, and little graphics of the dominant industry of the area. We used it mainly to track where the current tornadoes were touching down. "Oops, looks like Saline County's got another one!"
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7 January 2005
From Zaw on #wplug, tsunami before and after pictures
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One can never have too many weblogs. To gain some more visibility in the Mac programming game, I've added one over at Borkware, revamping the Borkware Miniblog with the OpenACS LarsBlogger(tm). I'll be making it prettier as time goes on, but it's servicable. Most of my geeky-mac stuff will end up over there, while I'll leave things like Kiddie Pictures of Rock Stars over here. The miniblog includes an RSS feed, and I've added a LiveJournal Syndication for folks who like using their Fiends List.
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6 January 2005
Snape! oh Snape! oh it's a Snape!.
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Beware the GIANT HEAD!. They're Everywhere!
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5 January 2005
From Billings, spamusements, much like Exploding Dog, but using subject lines from Spam.
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4 January 2005
From Crazy Erin, Homestar Runner Snowglobe.
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3 January 2005
Tricks of the Trade, like Hints from Heloise, but for stuff other than just household hints.
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Build a cube out a 6 bidness cards. But do the 12 card version. It's very nice.
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Gotta love the Acronym for the Bay Area Rapid Folders (EXTREME ORIGAMI!)
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2 January 2005
Cockeyed.com has added some new stuff to the Unsolicited Commerical Love Story. Have they finally found Alicia?
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1 January 2005
Hi Monkey has a new adventure! monkey visits the eye doctor. Having just visited the ophthalmologist recently, I can attest to the accuracy of monkey's visit.
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Something creepy to start out 2005 with: Cartoon Character Skeletons.
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31 December 2004
My AIM buddy rv53as teaches a CS Senior Semiar class at Binghamton University (SUNY). They have an ongoing project called The Watson Game, which is a continous project (a zork-style game where you try to graduate from college) where each new gaggle of students gets to pick up the work leftover by the previous gaggle. Start them off early knowing the fun of inheriting an existing codebase.
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Extreme Card Houses
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BEWARE OF MEGATOSTER!!!!
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The Mac side of the world has a
ton
of
rumor
sites. Looks like Dell is in the game now.
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30 December 2004
The BootX Book, Mac-style bootloaders.
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28 December 2004
Fish heads fish heads rolly polly fish heads. Eat them up yum.
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27 December 2004
From Crazy Erin, Tiny Plaid Ninjas.
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Mr. T vs. everything..
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26 December 2004
bbum talks about the Lego Store. I'm *so* glad we didn't have these when I was growing up. Every penny I had would have gone there.
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How HampsterDance Stole my Soul. Plumbs the Lovecraftian horror that is HampsterDance. Those cheerful little gray hampsters, bouncing up and down in a chorus line. They moved with perfect synchonicity, up and down, up and down, like the pistons of some furry, chipmunk-cheeked machine. The power-walking-in-place hampsters, their eyes fixedly staring out in mute appeal as they pant and jiggle. The ones that didn't even dance, just twirled in an endless circle, beady eyes shut and stubby arms rapturously raised to the heavens. I've tried spinning in place like that. It's fun. You can also Blow Away some dancing ham[p]sters.
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From jo2y, Badgersanta. Like the badger+mushroom thing, be sure to watch this all the way to the end.
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24 December 2004
Mr. T. Chia Pet
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iTunes has a nicer windows programming interface than Microsoft's own products.
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23 December 2004
Credit Card Pranks, specifically, does anyone actually check the signature? I enjoyed the Kingdom of Loathing style signature the best.
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Foods you can't get anymore. RIP Green Ketchup.
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22 December 2004
Kaiser Szuhay gets jiggy with Kwanzaa.
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ebradway, one of the Flutterby Regulars, talks about biodiesel.
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The Graphing Calculator Story. When I got my first PowerPC Mac (an 8100/80, absolutely top of the line. I took out a $7000 loan to get it, and career-wise it was worth every penny), it came with Graphing Calculator. That program was absolute magic (MacPaint and HyperCard were about the only other programs before that which were absolute magic). Put in an (x,y) equation and get an instant graph. Put in an (x,y,z) equation and get a surface. Grab onto the surface and spin it around. Those were the days.
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21 December 2004
Every now and then I browse the recent livejournal postings, and sometimes wonderful stuff floats by. Like this one: we have made the decision to let the one known as Erin Fox join the CCF. She drink Cherry Coke every day with her lunch. With a straw. We think those are grounds for qualification to be a member of the amazing CCF.. Way to go amazing CCF!
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18 December 2004
nope nope nopenopenopenopenope. com-pu-tor, yip yip yip yip yipyipyipyipyipyip.
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17 December 2004
From Duncan the Hutt(y), The American's Guide to Speaking British.
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You've probably heard of the Lytton Contest, in which folks try to construct the worst possible opening line to a novel. For the past couple of years, the Lyttle Lytton Contest has been doing the same thing, but limiting entrants to 25 words or less. After the first year are secondary contests, like the "worst final line" of a novel. In 3010, the potatoes triumphed.
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16 December 2004
Fan Page for Jan Smithers (Bailey on WKRP in Cincinnati). I always found her to be much more attractive than Loni Anderson. But I know I'm weird.
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15 December 2004
"I take care of the place while the MASTER is away". Torgo Theme (mp3), Torgo Theme (midi). For lots of fun, play them both at the same time. On auto-repeat. Loudly on your office computer. Before you leave for vacation.
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What you've been waiting for. The list of Kosher sluprees.
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14 December 2004
During the obligatory programming language "discussion" in #macdev, I off-handedly said "C++ is the closest that males can come to the pain of childbirth." Which for the most part, in Real Live Industry, is true. xmath pointed me at
unlambda, an intentionally-obfuscated (yet functional, in the pure functional sense) language, which is pretty painful to read.
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13 December 2004
Either a hoax, or another "The Japanese are Weird" thing, Lap Pillows.
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How to make a very tiny orange.
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Lego-Star Wars video game. DougEDoug passed on a comment from a slashdot discussion: "The screencaps are pretty impressive--the in-game characters look every bit as emotive and engaging as the actors in the movies!"
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10 December 2004
From Enna, Merry Catmas, two cats assist in the assembling and decoration of a christmas tree.
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9 December 2004
Seen on #macdev, HP TestDrives, including VMS.
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7 December 2004
New Stuff on RatherGood, including morris dancers.
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MaxTheOboe aimed and said that Frederick Fennell passed away this morning. :'-( He was one of the primary folks that established concert band music as a legitimate art form, and anyone who plays (or has played) in a band can thank him for the opportunity. I had a chance to play under him with two of Mark Norman's groups back in Northern Virginia, and had a chance to hang out with him during a conductor's conference. Quite a strange, yet cool individual.
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gig alert: I'm playing with the North Pittsburgh Philharmonic for their christmas schlock concert on Saturday (Dec 11rd) 7:00.
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3 December 2004
Any folks reading this TotalFarkers? If so, I've got a favor to ask (I want to see if there are any comments on an url I posted to fark the other day).
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2 December 2004
Found in Chunksland, 2.5 gigapixel photo, includes a way to browse it.
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Looks like Christo's Gates is a go, taking over Central Park, opening Feb 12rd 2005 (or thereabouts). Hopefully I can squeeze out a day or two to go see it.
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From BlueKanary, Kerberos, in four Scenes
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29 November 2004
Found on Flutterby, The Dirty Punk Funckin' Anarchy machine !!. u2 can be your own rock band.
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26 November 2004
For all those zombie fans out there, Odd Todd Halloween special III.
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Vacuuming your lungs, hints for beating nervous breathing.
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Found in the land of Chunks, hard disk tuning (with Lego).
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25 November 2004
Found on del.icio.us, Goth Limericks (?). Now you can get your angst in easy bite-sized chunklets.
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Lost Frog, original image by an autistic 16 year old. Photoshopping by the Internet At Large.
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24 November 2004
From the 41-Double-Debbie-Dee, The Kazoo Guy.
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A flash-based book report of the Harper Lee classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The talent of today's kids.
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23 November 2004
That Linux Users Group article has a link to a wonderful lexicon of phrases.
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WPLUG is going through a brief, unfortunate situation. An individual is causing problems on IRC and in real live meetings, so We As The Board are having to do something aobut it. In the process of figuring out what to do (they rejected my idea of a giant wok filled with boiling oil), she pointed me to this little article, Elections, Democracy, and Turnover. The story of the group's magazine editor is great.
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16 November 2004
It's not often you get to use the phrase plastic duck butts.
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DougEDoug is (currently) the fifth entry for Bulbous Bouffant. For folks who enjoyed that routine, someone has transcribed it, including a pretty clever way of showing the overlapping bits at the end.
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12 November 2004
In response to the hippy generation "Happy little book of pleasant affirmations" that plauge the local bookstores, there is now the Wee Book of Calvin.
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Found on boingboing, Interview with Benoit Mandelbrot.
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From Domo-Kun, Shards O Glass, the tasty dessert treat!
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From da GrandRapper, How it Works... The Computer. Unfortunately the "'Gates' and 'Highways'" chapter wasn't what I had hoped it was.
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The badger reached 200K today:
. It turns 18 after thanksgiving.
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6 November 2004
You've probably seen the Official Star Wars Ep III trailer. I like the production values of The Unofficial One (downloads are zip files of Quicktime mov-ays)
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5 November 2004
Yet Another "I work with fools" site. I Work With Fools.
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4 November 2004
A Fark photoshop contest: What if popular movies were performed by puppets, including several explorations of the Ernie / Bert dynamic.
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3 November 2004
Billings found this one: Floppy of Death.
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2 November 2004
Coca-Cola,the real thing pesticide
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From DougEDoug, Mukluks Galoshes Balooooooga. In DougEDoug's words, Follow the link, click on the big button labeled "Watch this Movie!!!" and ignore the graphics. I really enjoy this style of comedy. It reminds me a lot of the way Enna and I would talk to each other when growing up. Greeble hoover ni peng ni pong ni bork!.
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1 November 2004
I got an email saying that half of my regular readers haven't heard BanannaPhone Before. Here's the video. And The aftermath (soundtrack probably NSFW)
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From boingboing, Spoken-word interpretation of "Bananaphone".
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Cobra Commander for President.
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31 October 2004
grouphug.us, online anonymous confessional. Hail Marys not included.
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30 October 2004
Russian color photographs From 1909.
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For Crazy Erin: Print your own StarWars halloween masks.
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29 October 2004
LJ Person gets visit from secret service after making comments about The President. After the preliminaries is this observation: "What you say on the Internet can affect your real life". I'm shocked and amazed at how many folks don't seem to grasp that idea. If you post on your LJ that you hate your parents and are sleeping around with the local biker gang, your folks have a good chance of finding it. If you're applying for a job, and have a fairly unique name, employers will google for your name. If you have a weblog that says things like "I have an opportunity consulting with a company, but boy are they losers. Hopefully I can hold my nose long enough", don't be surprised if that comes up in the interview. (this actually happened with a friend. Luckily my friends are smart - he was on the interviewing end).
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High-powered pumpkin carving tools. Now we need the Tim Allen version.
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26 October 2004
Somtimes I wonder if Apple, as a company, has gone completely bonkers. The iPod Sock. The commetns at the end are amusing. And, once again, Apple rips off a small developer yet again. (thanks to PXR in #macdev)
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Larry Ellison obviously has some large stones.
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25 October 2004
Someone keeps stealing my letters. Massivily Multiplayer on-line refrigerator magnet game.
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From DougEDoug, Banana and Shrimp Showtime, from the makers of fine films like the bizarro Kikoman. "safe for work
maybe not safe for sanity."
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Found in Zman's World, Mindfulness in Plain English, or, Meditation for Americans. Back in college I did a term in London. A couple of us took an 8-week Budddhist Mediation class, held in one of the grungier parts of the city. It was a three hour session, once a week. First half was on meditation (first the Mindfulness of Breathing, which I still do irregularly today) and the Metta Bhavana, a meditation for developing lovingkindness (a.k.a. "Let's Be Excellent To Each Other, Dude"). The second half was a discussion of Buddhism, usually talking about some Buddhist Number (the seven paths of this, the thirteen things of that, the forty seven marklars, etc). One of our instructors had a delightful Irish accent, talking about the "boooooh-tah". There were a number of really neat people in the class, including a keyboard player who was playing for the London productions of Les Mis.
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Folks who have suffered through restaurant visits with me know that I typically play with the straws that come with the beverages. Usually they turn into abstract strawagami (about on par with my Oragami Boulder. Today Boingboing has a link to Incredible straw art.
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21 October 2004
OK, I admit it. I'm a serious music geek. Last night was my first rehearsal with the Loudn Symphony for their concert this weekend. We're doing (amongst other things) Brahms' first symphony (one of my all time favorite pieces of music). I'm just playing contrabassoon on it, but I had such a good time. I'm sure I had a big goofy grin on my face during the last movement (There's this incredible three bar brass chorale about 2 minutes before the end, which is one of the high points of the entire classical repertoire). Folks are sometimes surprised I don't have a fancy sound system (just a Bose radio in one room, and I use $10 K-Mart headphones for everything else). Once you've experienced live classical music from the middle of an orchestra, recordings just can't compare.
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19 October 2004
From Billing, The Yub Yub Song, Ewok-style.
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Zman is alive and blogging again. He has some pointers to Changes made to the Empire Strikes Back DVDs.
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While going through my server refer[r]er logs, I came across the page for Chad K. "BooBooHead" Bisk, whom I worked with at Visix many moons ago.
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18 October 2004
For Enna: Seminar teaches Zombie-fighting skills. Please don't learn any Zombo-fighting skills.
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From Talli on #macdev, Revision Control with Arch.
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15 October 2004
For Crazy Erin: Turkish Star Wars!!
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14 October 2004
Police aid Elvis, chase 'Blues Brothers' look-a-like. From G-R/E.D.
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Word-up to my bud Carter from a hella long time ago. He sent me this link to the Icelandic Phallological Museum. And yes, it's exactly what the name implies. Some images probably NSFW.
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TSA sets a new record. From zero to corruption in less than two years.
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13 October 2004
Kansas City Worldskippers, that great 70's cartoon, lovingly restored to Flashimation.
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Paperformers, transformers disguised as pieces of paper, which you then cut out and assemble.
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11 October 2004
From G.R/E-D, Rock and Roll Accordion, with MIDI!
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8 October 2004
Metal Goddess, heavy-metal belly dancers.
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7 October 2004
It's stuff like The ConferenceBike which makes me want to totally avoid the typical Big Business world, focusing on synergizing the dialoging with corporate teambuilding marklar. "So you're sending my job to India, and yet you can spend megabucks on the Team Building Consultants with their ConferenceBike."
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BEHOLD! THE SHRINE TO THE IKEA JERKER DESK!. We have Jerkers at Hobnob. The name is a source of amusement. Pretty cool computer desks.
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From fark, Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard, for when RPS is not enough.
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From DougEDoug, Tech Books for Free. Free programming and computer science books.
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This is pretty neat. Locahost.com, for when you accidentally type 'locahost' when you wanted 'localhost' to access a local webserver. Network printer configuration extra.
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6 October 2004
redtoade posts his grandaddytoade's opinion on our current presidential "choices". Where's Richard Pryor and the "none of the above" ticket when we need him?
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5 October 2004
From xmath in #macdev: Using Genomics techniques to reverse-engineer network protocols and analyze traffic.
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4 October 2004
From G-R/E.D., Just 2 guyZ havin' a good time, gitdown gitfunky rappa' action.
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TV Party's 1976 saturday morning, a listing of the saturday morning line-up from 1976. Other years, of course, are available too. The Krofft
Supershow / ABC (debut)
Starring Captain Kool and the Kongs, a "rock group", that served as hosts for an orgy of Sid and Marty Krofft weirdness.
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From DougEDoug, Text Generator. From the page Tired of using Lorem Ipsum for dummy text in your latest masterpiece? I found mp3 with one of the pieces of text.
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AHHHH!!!!! Giant Fly Attacks Mt. St. Helens!!! Looks like the US Forest Services has sense of humor.
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3 October 2004
From daveb in #openacs, Salt - Watch it, an edutational game about salt content in British foods. You play Sid, a slug, dodging some very unobservant guards. "I am walking back and forth and I do not see the giant six foot slug walking right across the aisle." I didn't play long enough to see if there was a cut-scene involving strip-searching a grandmotherly type looking for the source of the trail of mucous on the floor, then I'd know for sure this is a TSA training game.
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2 October 2004
A couple of specialized helium balloons can make you look like you're being attacked by missles. I recommend driving around Washington DC with these.
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:'-( Zathras, RIP.
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1 October 2004
Found on #macdev, Splint, a tool for statically checking C programs for security vulnerabilities and coding mistakes.
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30 September 2004
RetroCrush interviews Susan Powter.
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Instant Mess, a deconstruction of the existential impact of technology and its implications in the perpetuation of modern superficialism as it relates to the abuse of goldfish.
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Whoa. The Earth Sings. Once the song gets figured out, it'll probably be something annoying like the Macarena or the Bananaphone song.
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29 September 2004
Distributed Audio, like distcc for audio generation. Use a network of Macs to render your audio.
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28 September 2004
From Fark, Picture of horrific storm damage in Sweden. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected. Bork Bork Bork.
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Found on RetroCrush, FreeBento, sellers of
open-mouthed wind-up aliens, cute critters in bondage gear, BattleBabes, Yoda, and much much more coolness.
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27 September 2004
From G-R/E.D, All I asked for was iPods with fricken lasers on their heads.
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26 September 2004
Congratulations to jo2y and Virtual Spatula for serving over 20,000 Spatulas.
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There's always a Kaboom! (quicktime movie). Includes disembodied clown heads for Billings.
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Ruff Ruff (Freddies Blog) Ruff!. Chicken chicken chicken chicken not available for comment.
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24 September 2004
Cribbed from Doug E. Doug, PongMechanik, or Pong reimplemented outside of a computer. The movie is worth watching.
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Weird. Does anyone know how the LJ aggregated feeds work? The syndicated feed for Borklog seems to be losing a post or two every now and then.
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Billings was describing what happened to his Sims Games when he accidently let it play over night (or for a couple of days, I forget), ending up with some dead Sims and folk stuck in the pool. Something Awful tries the same with Sims 2.
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23 September 2004
Pac Man Art, Shadow is the ghost hero. This image is glorifying him.
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From Billings-San, The Last Starfighter, The Musical.
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An "interesting" posting on the Artima Weblogs, Java and coolness, a "discussion". Which seems to be "I have this valid gripe about Java" and the response is hand-waving, which leads to a voluminous, yet pointless post. And that's very sad. I've read the hand-waver's Java performance tuning book and really enjoyed it.
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22 September 2004
Milky Way has tasty nougat center. Now waiting for the Scots to deep-fry it.
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Back in High School in the mid-80's, we had a Photo Typesetter in the journalism room (an AM Varitype Comp/Set 510-II). I loved that machine. Took 8" floppies. Had a totally arcane user interface, but was still surprisingly user-friendly for the time. There are some small pictures in the right-hand column of this page in French. Take a look at the keyboard picture. All the orange keys were special markup keys. So there was a special key for primary leading, secondary leading, point size, as well as cursor keys (the cursor didn't scroll vertically, just wrapped around to the top or bottom of the screen), plus single-character and word-delete, and a dozen or so other functions I forget. I still remember the keystrokes for saving files. Each of these are independent keys. File, Write, (letter from A-R indicating what file on the drive to save the text in, no more than ~20K). that wrote it. To commit the write, it was File, Write, Single-erase. I probably remember that because it's so bizarre. If you didn't do the File, Write, Single-erase, your data would not get saved. It also had different programs for editing (one called "Edit/Scroll") and one for actual typesetting (called the "Counting Program"). Reset, Mem, G would reboot the machine and bring up Edit/Scrool, Reset, Mem, A would bring up the Counting program. Reset, Mem, other letters would bring up bizarre half-working versions of the previous programs. I could go on and on more about this silly machine.
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From Chunks, North Korean News Agency, translated.
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21 September 2004
I thought I had listed 101 BASIC Computer Games, that someone scanned out of the classic 1978 volume, but I couldn't find it easily, so here it is again.
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From the UberJames, How to do the Mexican Hat Dance, with your choice of music formats.
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SomethingAwful has reviewed Boston and Shaun, a rather incoherent and disturbing web comic. Kind of a cross between a Calvin and Hobbes rip off crossed with NAMBLA and the Furry community. There are some web comics that are much more explicit (such as Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, invovling tentacle monsters, a mature woman trapped in a Chibi body, Freddy the transvestite, Drunk&Bitter Jesus, and much much worse; and Sexy Losers, which has done more for homosexual necrophelia than anyone else on the internet), but those comics seem to be done by relatively normal individuals who go Out There for a really good joke, or for a dead-on parody of some aspect of online or real-world culture. [I happen to enjoy both of those. Definitely not safe for work by any stretch of the imagination]. There are also some webcomics that are just plain incredibly lame, but Boston and Shaun has filled that much needed void in the "I have a fetish involving young boys and dragons, and fattenings, and I want to live it out through my comic" department.
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20 September 2004
Even unix is better on a Mac. For a client gig, we've been mandated to use something that's Word compatible for internal documentation. Since we (as the programmers) don't want the Horror that is Office polluting our workflows, OpenOffice has been settled on as the logical choice (it can interchange with the Dark Side, and it's possible to expand the native format into something that can be kept under revision control). I've burned many, many hours trying to get this working on FreeBSD using their ports and packaging system. After many failed attempts, with the ports wanting to go to Japan to download the stuff (!), wanting newer versions of perl and gcc than I have, and generally crapping out with segVs and mysterious pythong errors, I went head and just downloaded the installer for Mac OS X. 155 megs, and an hour of installer griding later, I have a double-clickable version of OpenOffice running under X11 on OS X.
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Found on Flutterby, "If you all don't lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes." [edited to remove some stray windows high-bit characters that got cut-n-pasted]
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I know Some Of You Out There listen to classical music on internet radio. I came across a cool station, radioCLASSICAL, found in the iToots radio choices. They've been playing a really nice mix of modern classical, much of which I've never heard before. As much as I enjoy the Standard Repertoire, I can only listen to Shezherazade so many times before I run from the room and put on some Dead Kennedys.
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19 September 2004
Cool application of technology: Long-distance guitar lessons via iChant.
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17 September 2004
Holy freak that's a lot of rain. We've gotten probably 3+ inches so far from the dregs of Ivan. The creek out back is pretty high. I hope The Bridge survives. The pool is probably an inch or two from totally overflowing. Hopefully we can get some pictures if/when that happens. Now if we can just get the chimney to stop dripping...
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14 September 2004
For Crazy Erin: Milk Got, Hmmmm?.
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13 September 2004
goatse.cx may be living on only in our memories, and on Chunks' desktop wallpaper, but it looks like the cover of the current issue of Time has a subtle homage to the ol' receiver.
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Dossy from #openacs passed along this open source project with a most disturbing logo.
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12 September 2004
Last night I went with Andrew and Lisa to go see Eddie From Ohio, a quartet of folks from Northern Virginia (?). They have some really nice music. The lead singer has an incredible voice, the drummer looked like he had a bad case of stage fright (but then went on to blow our collective socks off with a 5-minute solo spot that started on Bongos and ended up on a small trap set). And why is it the bass player is always the comic relief? If they come to your town, and you like folk-style music with a subtle sense of humor (and sometimes not so subtle, but not outright comedy like Christine Lavin), they're worth seeing.
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Following up on the ITMS thing, Hayseed Dixie, a Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC.
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We've finally gotten DSL around here! woo! The iTunes Music Store is now very, very evil now that it's actually quick to navigate around it (we've had satellite internet for the last year and a half). While bouncing around ITMS, I came across this great playlist, The WORST Music on iTunes. And they're not kidding. The clip for Hotel California is... amazing.
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10 September 2004
Circulated amongst the hobnobbers, FindBugs, a bug pattern detector for Java.
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9 September 2004
From Steve Ivy, Cooking for Engineers. I really like the compact recipe format.
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8 September 2004
Also found on boingboing, Unix on the GameBoy Advance, which runs an old version of the original unix on a PDP-11 emulator on the gameboy (!).
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Wow. Seattle has the coolest art shows. Amy Hill's Portraits of Movie Monsters as businessmen (scroll to the end) looks totally bizarre and really neat.
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Alicia gets around, the effect that stock photography has on a poor, unsuspecting internet denizen.
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7 September 2004
Wow. A webcomic that uses the term callipygian.
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6 September 2004
Hostess Wedding Cake.
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3 September 2004
Klaatu, Barrada, Flying Saucer Rocket Thingo.
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2 September 2004
From Doug E. Doug, iLeader, temporary Apple CEO travels the world.
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1 September 2004
From Grand-Rapper/E.D., The Monetary Economics of Thurston Howell III.
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31 August 2004
How To Study. Wish I had this when I went to college. The part about taking notes and copying them afterwards is what I ended up doing, especially for higher-level math classes (especially since my handwriting has a half-life of less than a day). It made a world of difference.
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30 August 2004
WTF(rog)? Erie PA being overrun by Frogs. Having no idea these frogs were there led to a very surreal morning of driving around in Redtoade's minivan taking pictures.
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27 August 2004
Although Microsoft has been accused of copying Apple, there's no need to copy the Copeland development process.
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The Making of Lauren. The creation of a mannequin.
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Firefly Feature Movie, out April 22th.
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26 August 2004
From Silvestril in #ntclan, Linkopings Studentspex personnel. Or something like that.
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Apple Store opening in da 'Burgh Sep 4rd.
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25 August 2004
Reviews of Bar Soap.
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Found on fark: Cool photo of the Cassiopeia nova aftermath. The caption says this is a one-million second exposure, which is 11 days worth. I wonder if the law of reciprocity failure applies to satellites...
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Another reason why I love my Mac. New worm watches you on your webcam.
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24 August 2004
From iamthekiller, Hobo Lan Box.
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22 August 2004
Why Specs Matter, on the two different kinds of developers.
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20 August 2004
From BoingBoing: Women in Spacesuits. For redtoade: Women in Spacesuits from the 80's.
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CSari, who runs AcornHosting (where I locate Badgertronics and all my other sites. If you need cheap, reliable, or flexible hosting (Choose all thre) they're the place to go), wrote a bit on vservers as development / production environment, using the Linux vserver project to make development and deployment of servers much easier. Need to see what'll break when upgrading glibc? make a vserver and try it out.
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From Chanson, 21 page dissertation on how to drag table columns when programming for windows. Thankfully this is a built-in feature with the Mac's Cocoa toolkit, and has been there forever.
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From Sharzipan, Stuffed-bear Pyramid Scheme. Run your mouse over their tummies for fun.
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19 August 2004
From rzolf, OnStar conversations not selected for the commercials.
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18 August 2004
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About (luckily not actualy me. Happiness is being in a mature relationship where neither side has to be Right all the time.)
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17 August 2004
Found on BoingBoing, A Very Star Wars Wedding. Nerf-herders not welcome.
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16 August 2004
I may have run this before, but it's pretty funny, so I'll run it again. Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. It's not just bad techincal documentation and illustration, it's strange and bizarre technical documentation and illustration.
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The Filthy Critic reviews The Princess Diaries II. Young Hathaway plays an alien from another planet seeking out an enemy comatant, while Julie Andrews plays pretty much the same character she did in The Sound of Music: a screeching, slimy monster imprisoned and forced to procreate in the bowels of a pyramid.
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15 August 2004
Found on MemePool. Librarians in Pornography, where someone apparently has read nearly 50 X-rated books that center on librarians. I'm hopeful there's not a Computer Programmers in Pornography, and if there is, it'll probably be filed in the Horror section.
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14 August 2004
A new use for an iPod. I wonder if any damage would be covered under the warranty.
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I don't often chuckle at my own material, but I enjoyed this exchange in #wplug:
_gentgeen_ Lynx and Gopher are animals, of course symbolizing
the technology
markd2 Much like the badger and mushroom, symbolizing the Jungian
drives of self, and shadow
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13 August 2004
:'-( Julia Child to make mess in great kitchen in the sky.
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12 August 2004
I'm doing some DocBook XML for andrew here at HobNob, and he pointed me to DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide for how to style DocBook XML, and (more imporantly for me) getting the tools working. Getting the DocBook SGML toolchain up and working was such a huge gigantic pain in the butt. Now that it works, it works great, but it's starting to show it age (especially since I'll be needing to move a big chunk of stuff into a publishing system that will allow XML imports)
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11 August 2004
*sigh*. The spammers have won. I've gotten tired of getting a bunch of AIM spam, so I'm restricting my incoming IMs to just folks on my buddy list (I think I have everybody, but I might have missed somebody). If you don't see me on AIM and think I should be there, drop me some email. *sigh*
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Wanting to learn WebObjects? Some folks I know are building a class.
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GVD recently got a new Nikon DigiCam, and said the manual "seems to have been written by Japanese techs after litres of Sake". I of coure directed him to Engrish.com. I always lose hours when I there. I did find this one for Chunks.
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10 August 2004
From #macdev (of all places),
what are the odds of dying, kind of a gruesome litany of different ways to buy the farm. MikeAsh follows up with Fatalities per million exposure hours.
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iPod vs Cassette Tape.
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9 August 2004
Found on Fark: Baby Sleestak born in London Zoo.
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8 August 2004
What's more fun than Terminators? Terminators in Hats!.
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7 August 2004
Doodoocaca, probably the most random Flashimation I have ever seen.
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6 August 2004
Bring Back Kirk. The mind boggles.
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5 August 2004
Rzolf has added a random-photo thing for the front page of Gitdown. Reload for new picturestyles.
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Coaster Dynamix, like Lego for rollercoasters.
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4 August 2004
My Higschool/College/AOL friend Shannon is selling some kind of nice face goop lotions and whatnot for folks who like that kind of stuff. If this interests you, shower her with mon-ay.
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"The man in the back said Everyone Attack and it turned into a Ballroom Blintz. And the girl in the corner said Boy I wanna warn ya, it'll turn into a Ballroom Blintz. Ballroom Blintz."
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3 August 2004
Occasionally SomethingAwful has something serious, yet cool. Pop's Vietnam Slides. Photos from a Navy doctor.
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2 August 2004
Looking for LDAP? LDAPMan to the rescue. All sorts of LDAP resources and links, for those who are LDAPper.
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From Beff in #ntclan, Salad Fingers, a creepy flashimation.
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1 August 2004
Last night we went down into Pittsburgh to see Howard Shore conducting his Lord of the RIngs Symphony featuring music from the movies, accompanied by storyboard and illustrations from the film. I was as a really great concert. I like the soundtracks, but hearing it live adds another dimension to the experience. The audience around me was better behaved last night than at previous concerts. We were up in the "great circle" area of Heinz hall, those quasi box-seat kind of things. The 2 folks behind us were gum-poppers, there was a copuple with spiked hair in the row ahead of us that chatted through the second half, and down on the floor were a pair of pre-teen boys pretending they were in the back seat of a road trip. sigh.
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30 July 2004
Billings-San had a link to yet another Quizilla Personality test thing.. This one is much better than the usual "Which Winnie the Pooh Character are you? I feel a) depreseed [sic] all the time b) bouncy and enerjetic [sic] c) hungry all the time". I got Category X - The Changeling:
Witty, amusing and a bit weird, you're welcomed
into most social groups, even though you don't 'fit in' perfectly, which is pretty accurate.
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28 July 2004
Grrr! Argh! I must eat brains. What is it about zombies that are so much fun?
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27 July 2004
From BoingBoing: UK's preparing for emergencies (*cough* terrorism paranoia *cough) quickly parodied.
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Stolen from Flutterby, That's no space station. Now I wonder how AT&T got there before NASA...
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26 July 2004
Adventures of a BlondeStar telephone representative.
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25 July 2004
Not Fooling ANybody, repurposed, yet familiar storefronts.
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Enter the Ping Pong Matrix. (QT6)
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24 July 2004
Harry Potter: A New Hope?.
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23 July 2004
From G/R-E.D, Kontraband.com, including a bunch of movies, including this how to fold shirts, Triumph of the Human Spirit, and
Truth in Advertising (has some NSFW language), and a bunch of other movies which are NSFW and/or show the depths of human stupidity.
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21 July 2004
Found on boingboing, really cool tiling animated gif.
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20 July 2004
G/R-E.D. got hitched at the Graceland Wedding Chapel. [official web site].
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19 July 2004
I wish I could come up with ideas like these. Carve out a coin leaving the face that smokes. Apparently he's blown his bandwidth budget. Here's a google cache.
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16 July 2004
Redmond Blogs, Cupertino Codes.
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Steve Ivy, the cool dood behind Monkinetic, is trying to defeat another Steve Ivy in Google Rankings. I read Steve Ivy and must obey Steve Ivy and mention Steve Ivy's name and link to his blogstyles.
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14 July 2004
HULK HAVE DIARY!
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13 July 2004
Storm chaser photo diaries
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12 July 2004
Dominic Giampaolo, who created the Be file system and Apple's Spotlight file-searching technologies, wrote a really great book on file system design. It's out of print, but you can download a copy from his webpage. If you've wanted to know how journaled, metadata rich filesystems work, that's the book to read.
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Mac rah-rah piece, My Mac OS X is Better.
So what about the argument of the Mac being a small market? My response: Define market. First off, I can develop in a host of languages deployable on any platform. Second, in my tribe, Macs are rampant.
I guess if I really wanted to sell software to people who buy their machines at Wal-Mart, then I'd be all behind Windows or whatever. But as it is, in the circles I run in, Windows is so 1999.
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Now this is a movie I'd like to see. Windows 911.
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Your favorite game-sprites of old, rendered in beads.
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Founding Fathers Rap (flash)
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10 July 2004
Super StickFigure vs. Wall Big Battel!
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9 July 2004
Some dude seems to like the Core book.
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The Russian Dolls go on holiday (flash). The nested wooden doll-toys, not the buy-a-brides.
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Something Awful Photoshop Phriday - anagrammed movie posters, featuring the latest J.K. Rowling masterpiece, His Party, A Broken Harp, and a Frozen Otter.
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Charlie Bucket's speech to the Chocolate Factory staff on its inevitable retooling.What do Snozzberries taste like? The snozzberries taste like lost profits. And if we continue to operate the way Willy Wonka had intended we will be closing the doors here in a matter of weeks. Instead, I would like to think there is the possibility of a bright future for our chocolate factory, but it is going to take a lot of change and a lot of hard sacrifices.
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Guide to Securing Mac OS X.
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7 July 2004
Today must be movie day. Break-Dancing Transformers.
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It's spider legoMan!.
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Making of the tertiary sequence of the Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio show, starring much of the original cast.
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4 July 2004
Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken (PDF chicken). Awarded Best Paper and Best Paper on Chickens
at prestigious PoCSci '02 conference
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2 July 2004
The community band we play in is doing a concert July third at oh my god they killed KennyWood. We get to ride-all-day fer free (woo!) and then play a concert aroudn 7pm. Most of the Amusement Park "food" I try to avoid, since it's both bad for you, generally disgusting, and hideously overpriced. One thing I do enjoy out there is Dippin Dots, the super-frozen blobs of ice cream. The end-user wins because they are very cold and tasty, and the venu wins because they're also hideously overpriced, and since Dippin Dots are spherical, there is more air per unit-volume than regularly packed ice cream goodness. Not to be outdone by the likes of id and Blizzard, the Dippin Dots folks have their own Interactive Acade Gaming Experience, giving me a good dose of arcade-game zen that I haven't experienced in awhile. Please fogive their horrid abuse of the english language on the front screen.
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From da UberJames, soldering surface-mount electronics with a toaster oven.
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1 July 2004
yay! himonkey gives us the long awaited and anticipated refreshing limeade recipe.
refreshing limeade
dancing over cool ice cubes
nectar of the gods.
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DogCow goes VR(5).
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Found on BoingBoing, Seattle's Roq la Rue Gallery will be running a Painters of Blight show, featuring defacements of Thomas Kinkade "Painter of Smarm" and Jack Chick art. If you've never experienced the awesome spectacle of Chick Tracts, you're definitely missing out.
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30 June 2004
From a comment in an artima discussion, a teaser chapter about Facts of Software Engineering Management. Fact 21 was the most interesting to me: For every 25 percent increase in problem complexity, there is a 100 percent increase in complexity of the software solution. That's not a condition to try to change (even though reducing complexity is always a desirable thing to do); that's just the way it is.
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Also from Chunks, Totally SideTalking, or just Go to the pictures.
SO HOW DOES THE WORLD UNITES WITHOUT SIDETALKIN'??
THE N-GAGE IS NOW UN-EMBARASSING.. SCREW IT OFF NOKIA!!
but! like ghandi tells, it is not a time for anger.
this is a time for an update with intensity.
a celebration of what is lost, left behind
the final update of our movement.
my friends, i give you: enjoy.
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From Baron Von Chunkenstein, Field Guide to Online dataing Profile Photography.
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RedMonk has a pointer to a SomethingAwful forum posting about this
homemade flamethrower.
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29 June 2004
AOLserver is a wonderful web application platform. It's not the greatest reverse proxy. Folks visiting sites I host occasially (or not so occasionally) see the "not found" error, even though the site is still alive. I've installed the Pound reverse proxy. Only took about 3 hours from download, stage on a home machine, and deploy fer real, which I think is a record for me.
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28 June 2004
Ten Fallacies of Software Analysis and Design.
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27 June 2004
Terror Alert Banana:
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25 June 2004
Fozzie the What?.
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24 June 2004
PowerPizza, stealthy protection for your laptop computer.
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19 June 2004
I know I've been wanting to do this to every singing squash I see on the streets.
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17 June 2004
Gig Alert: Zephyrs, the west winds, our woodwind quintet, will be performing sunday (Father's Day) at 4:00 at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 920 Perry Highway (412 364 6626). We'll be doing the same concert On Sunday July 11 at First Evangelical Lutheran in Leechburg in the afternoon. The one this sunday will be air-conditioned, the one in July won't be. Admission is $5 to the St John's gig, but we have a couple of comp tickets if you know fer-sher you'll be going.
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When the zombies take over, how long until the electricity stops?. must... eat... brains...
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For Kingdom of Loathing players, there's a List of KoL fansites, with FAQs, spoilers, and wastes of space.
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16 June 2004
Usually I ignore the email alerts I get from JoelOnSoftware, since he is usually a microsoft cheerleader. but his latest missive, How Microsoft Lost the API War is interesting reading. It's interesting seeing the reaction to .NET from the perspective of a software vendor that actually has a product.
It's just Fire and Motion as far as I'm concerned: Microsoft would love for me to stop adding new features to our bug tracking software and content management software and instead waste a few months porting it to another programming environment, something which will not benefit a single customer and therefore will not gain us one additional sale, and therefore which is a complete waste of several months, which is great for Microsoft, because they have content management software and bug tracking software, too, so they'd like nothing better than for me to waste time spinning cycles catching up with the flavor du jour, and then waste another year or two doing an Avalon version, too, while they add features to their own competitive software
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Found on the blort, Origami Insects.
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From Enna, Eyesore of the Month, this time featuring the new Seattle Public Library. Looks like something out of the old Buck Rogers in the 25rd Century TV show. I expect Twiki and Feathered-Hawk-Guy to walk out of there at any minute. BeeDee BeeDee BeeDee Blech! DougEDoug pointed out how ironic it is that the author of Eyesore of the Month's website has such an ugly home page. All it needs are some blink tags and an animated spinning "email me!" graphic, and it will have all the juicy web-of-the-mid-90s goodness.
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15 June 2004
From uberjames, NZ Man charged by telecom for being an arrogant bastard.
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Ex-Mormon goes on killing spree with playboy-centerfold wife, tries to cause second coming of Christ. Beware those South American Orphans.
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14 June 2004
From Billings, Dasher, a pretty wild way of entering text.
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11 June 2004
Found in the Football Badgers, by the badger-mushroom guy. Let's go local sports organization!
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10 June 2004
Random Garfield cartoon generator, which is frequently more amusing than the Real Thing.
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1,300,925,111,156,286,160,896 ways to spell Viagra
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For Billings: Squirrel Chase. (Found on the
Everlasting Blort.
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9 June 2004
Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.
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This has floated around #macdev a couple of times Newbie Advice, for clueless programmers posting equally clueless questions. Contains swearing. Premature optimization is the root of all evil! bad programmer! NO COOKIE!
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From (non-red) Toad on #macdev, Psychoacoustics Textbook. The PDF version is the most recent one, but there's an older HTML version at the bottom of the page.
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SomethingAwful has Tales from the Mental Hospital, involving real life adventures.
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8 June 2004
From Molvania, a land untouched by modern dentistry is the rock video Electronik Supersonik.
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From Billings, Some pictures of the Venus transit. The giant planet-sized airplane ripping a gash in the sun's surface is pretty freaky, though.
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For those of you who enjoy Macrame, and owls, here are approximately 48 macrame owls.
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From billings, Hooked on badgerphonics
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7 June 2004
From G-R/E.D, Good Lord, what is Betty Rubble doing here. The floating phantom head of Capn' Crunch lends an additional surreal touch to the whole sordid scene.
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While still on Harry Potter, The Filthy Critic actually likes the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is pretty damn good. A lot better than these dirty little pissers deserve. I mean, a big part of me says they should get the same shitty Shakespeare-in-high-school ripoffs and John Hughes crap we got. It toughens you, makes you bitter and teaches you to expect less than nothing and still get pissed off when you don't get it.
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From uberjames, The Keybowl Orbitouch Keyboard, looking like a set of bongos you can use to type with. Hip Poetry not included.
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found on Fark, Fiction Alley. In their own words: "FictionAlley is the largest fanfic site in the Harry Potter fandom. We have four fanfic "houses" - Schnoogle for novel length fanfics, Astronomy Tower for romance fics, The Dark Arts for dramas, angst, mysteries and anything serious, and Riddikulus for humor fics. As of November 19, 2003, we have over 32,000 fic-parts on FictionAlley" The fact that they have a seperate section for novel-length fan fiction is disturbing. Although I am surprised there isn't a special Slash section.
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6 June 2004
From Kryme in #wplug, Dyson Telescope Puzzle Game, mildly addictive.
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Daring Fireball on "Broken Windows", on why there are no Mac OS X exploits, virus, worms, trojans, adware or spyware. No exploits. Not just not-five-percent of the vast quantity of windows exploits, but none.
let's address that other popular canard of Windows apologia - that on the whole, Windows XP is just as good, if not better, than Mac OS X. OK, fine. XP is as good as OS X; Windows Movie Maker is as good as iMovie; Photoshop Album is better than iPhoto; etc.
But is it fair to judge Mac-v.-Windows under factory-fresh conditions? Wouldn't an accurate comparison be better made a few months down the road - after a nice sampling of the hundreds of new Windows viruses discovered each week get a chance to find a home on the Windows box? In the hands of a typical user, a six-month-old Mac is almost certainly in similar working condition as when it left the store; a six-month-old Windows PC, on the other hand, is likely to be infested with multiple instances of crapware. And if it's not, it's likely because the poor sap who bought it just got done reinstalling from scratch.
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4 June 2004
For Rzolf, Bed of Ham
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From da' Grand Rapper: Cubicle tinfoil.
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3 June 2004
From the Everlasting Blort, The Hole. A man, a shovel, a patch of ground, and a Dream.
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From jo2y, Call someone who cares, about a support desk individual fielding calls from a truly annoying customer.
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1 June 2004
Someone (with a lot of time on their hands) transcribed Airplane.
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From ScottK's Food Blog, The Way We Eat Now, about how Americans live and eat and how it leads to obesity.
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Need A Napkin, Ken Arnold talks a bit about his back-of-the-napkin UI For Java, which is a hilarious (yet cool) idea.
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A Fark Photoshop, Unlikely Bible-based movies, some of them are pretty good. "My Shack, Your Shack, and A bungalow". heh.
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I've migrated Badgertronics to the latest OpenACS. Upgraded the webserver, the database, and the toolkit. There's still a couple of items to iron out, like hiding the :8008 port number in the url, and daemon tools is not wanting to start this service. If anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, please lemme know:
-
% sudo svc -u /service/badgertronics results in
svc: warning: unable to control /service/badgertronics: file does not exist
-
/service/badgertronics/run exists, and is root:root/700
- running it by hand (
sudo /service/badgertronics/run) brings up the website happily. (I'm also having other, weird daemontools problems)
-
svscan is running.
- other daemontools services are running fine.
Which exhausts all the stuff I've been able to Google for.
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31 May 2004
New OddTodd cartoon, "Laid Off: Career Day".
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30 May 2004
A tribute to goatse.cx. If you enjoyed goatse.cx, you need therapy. If you found it mildly amusing, you might enjoy this collection. If you've never heard of it, you probably want to avoid this.
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Snacking Jesus. Reload the page to get a different caption. (via the blort)
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Analyzing a company by the books its staff purchases on Amazon, comparing Apple, AOL, and MS.
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29 May 2004
Eric Idle's commentary on American politics, lyrics probably NSFW, at least on a loudspeaker.
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28 May 2004
Name That Beard. I liked the Rasputin entry.
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27 May 2004
Star Dudes, Episode IV in 5 minutes, dude.
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Uncle Bob (Robert C. Martin) writes about The Tortise and the Hare, comparing software development to a tractor pull, and how speed in development is the enemy of quality.
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Bush Is Lord, a site dedicated to showing our leader in His truest holy light.
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26 May 2004
Cookie Mongoloid, speed-metal Sesame-Street cover-band. As G/R-E.D. says, "I can hear the Henson-property lawyers preparing the B-52s full of subpoenas for carpet bombing."
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B5 movies coming on DVD.
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25 May 2004
This one is for redtoade: 80's Celebrity Makeovers. Cringe at the horrid 80's make-up styles, and see the 'before' pictures as well.
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A friend of mine did the Whopper Mile. Here are the rules:
The Whopper Mile: Get four (4) Burger King Whoppers - cheese is optional. Eat the first one, run a quarter-mile, eat the second, run a quarter-mile, eat the third, run a quarter-mile, eat the fourth, run the final quarter. There will be puking. Most will not finish. It is 100x harder than it sounds reading it. The running is the EASY part. Options include the Women's Junior Whopper division and Veggie Whopper division. There WILL be puking. I dare you to try it.
Sometimes America just amazes me.
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Creepy Clown. Folks get the model for the clown, and place him in all sorts of action poses. Just the sheer number of clowns is disturbing (more disturbing than clowns are to start out with)
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It's been a very sad year. One of my high school history teachers passed away recently, as did Dr. Franklin from Babylon 5.
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22 May 2004
Powerbooks gaining in popularity at the Audio Engineering Society.
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20 May 2004
Only know three chords? Maybe Power Chord Academy is for you.
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From Billings, Can Episode III be saved? Alfred Hitchcock's dictum that "the more successful the villain, the more successful the picture" is of primary importance to Episode III, since the rise of Darth Vader is the heart of the story. Lucas has already done more than enough work on another Hitchcock maxim, "Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.". The last section is worth any price of admission.
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From Frek in #macdev, hmm some how I doubt this is how Handel intended this to sound like.
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19 May 2004
A discussion on HFS+ fragmentation (or the lack thereof). Nice never having to run a defragment utility.
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From Enna, What be your natural life energy quiz.
You are a Dynamic Supportive: Charismatic, warmhearted, sincere, reliable, humorous, compassionate, strong yet gentle -- all these words describe Dynamic Supportives. The Dynamic Supportive energy is typified in therapists, doctors, conciliators, clergy, teachers, and communicators. Dynamic Supportives are independent, intuitive, and good at bringing people together, sometimes serving as bridges between Dynamics and Adaptives. Not too surprising. At the Purfuit o' Excellence, I was a supporting analyzer, which has siilar characteristics.
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17 May 2004
The Filthy Critic on SuperSize Me. First, he only took on one vice, when it's common knowledge that you need to counter one with another. Like drinking is healthiest when you smoke. Or a crack addiction is optimized with a delusional paranoia. As a heavy drinker with a hell of a lot more than thirty days under my belt, I've got a little advice: push through the pain, you baby.
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On t3h m0by bl()gZ0r's blog, very helpful XP dialog.
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16 May 2004
Looks like my Magnum Opus is available on Amazon(e). Stop by and give it a good review :-)
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11 May 2004
Via UberJames, The Yankee or Dixie Quiz, based on your pronounciation of words, it guesses what part of the US you are from. Turns out I'm 85% Dixie. Did you have any Conferderate Ancestors?. Probably not, but I still call it the War of Northern Aggression. Now pass me a Coke.
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8 May 2004
From Billings, Kingdom Of Loathing, online RPG. I'm currently a level 1 Polka Criminal. Alas I don't have sufficient Moxie points to get into the Haiku Dungeon. This dungeon is deep, unlike your well of courage. You jet. Big sissy.
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The Worm Within, dude describes finding and purging a tapeworm (ewww).
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7 May 2004
ScottK purchased some tickets online via Ticketbastard, and received an amusing "if you are human, type this word in" challenge to respond to.
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Knit your own Elvis Wig (courtesy of the Everlastng Blort)
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From JK, Japanese Emoticons. I still like my Domo-kun emoticons, \Ö/, and the TIE-Fighter version, |-Ö-|
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6 May 2004
Crazy Erin is back from the Navy for a week, and dropped off this URL of guys playing D&D badly.
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4 May 2004
Godzilla, the way God his creators intended. Wonder if the Criterion Collection will have this on DVD.
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3 May 2004
From rzolf, the ideal real-estate sales pitch. You can park behind the place or on the street. A lot of people are always hanging out down the block but they are nice and always wave at me when I drive through. Don't let them scare you.
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2 May 2004
Spastic Squirrell on the Fatkins Diet. Language not safe for work.
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1 May 2004
Whenever I fly at night, the Hand Of Man on the land is readily apparent, with the criss-cross of lights extending into the distance in all directions. This satellite photo of airplane contrails shows the Hand Of Man in the sky.
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The internet has something for everyone, no matter how narrow their tastes run. Leia's Metal Bikini, includes fans in costume, fan artwork, screen capture from a "Friends" episode, and instructions on making your own.
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30 April 2004
For the old-timers out there, American Business Company Computer Catalog, circa 1981. Includes floppy drives and daisy-wheel printers.
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29 April 2004
For you LJ folks, UberJames has set (for awhile now) a feed for BorkLog, suitable for framing adding to your LJ fiends list.
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Sometimes these here web-browser things can surprise even me. For the folks who saw a whole bunch of the GrapeStomping thing, I'm not sure what happened, but somehow a from decided to POST itself 6 or 7 times.
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From Frek in #macdev, Grape Stomping Blurb in Atlanta. The grape-stoping bit was actually pretty interesting (if not weird with 30 seconds of feet with an advertising voice over. The tragedy near the end is unfortunate, but the bit after that with the news anchors is disturbingly surreal.
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From the wooden periodic table dude, Making small change smaller, shrinking coins with the power of your mind magnetism.
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28 April 2004
I remember Enna talking about these things in college. Sodium Party, tossing blocks of Na into water.
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Vixen Love, An AIMbot that snares the clueless. Some content (text) not safe for work, other content not safe for the future of America. lol u r hott chik
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Bonsai Potato(e), Zen without the wait.
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27 April 2004
From rzolf, dudes riding woks down escalators.
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From Porruka, A Shoggoth on the Roof. The Documentary is fun. Be sure to sample some of the mp3s.. Also check out their A Very Scary Solstice Christmas album. I can't stop listening to The Carol of the Old Ones
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From TeVL, Wedding Dress on eBay. I like the additional comments from the seller.
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26 April 2004
you can now get your own the stuffed The Cheat.
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From Billings, exhilarator, random cartoons paired with random captions. Some are not safe for work (although I loaded a couple dozen before seeing one with a an anatomically correct pinocchio).
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25 April 2004
The Script to Buckaroo Banzai (at least it seems real from a real quick skim)
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24 April 2004
A brief tour of Hell, oriental style.
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23 April 2004
I really enjoy this balloonstring game. I've spent entirely too much time playing with it. Then again, I am very easily amused.
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From Billings-san, Squirrels singing Disco Sauna. Must... call Squirrel-Chat... now.
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MPromo, all your McDonald's promotional needs. Too bad you have to run a McDs to get that stuff. I was really looking forward to getting a giant McRib sign for the front yard.
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In what is probably the most surreal of HiMonkey's adventures, HiMonkey goes to the Poetry Lab. Oh little Monkey, TerryCloth radiation, Beware that needle.
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Vending Machines of Japan.
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22 April 2004
EPA Approved ICBMs has been making the rounds, about replacing minuteman engines with ones that don't pollute the atmosphere. I'm hoping there is more to this story, since the obvious question that pops up "won't the nuclear warheads do more net environmental harm than the engines used in their launching". Or is this just that the engines need to be replaced anyway, and are being replaced with Greener models?
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From the WWN, European Union to close, re-open as theme park.
Much of the entertainment for visitors to EuroWorld will come from creative new activities that incorporate established European traditions.
For example, there will be bungee jumping from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, waffle juggling in Brussels and prostitute races in Amsterdam.
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A fun fark photoshop, Photoshop an unlikely Star Trek novel cover.
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21 April 2004
Lots of random rock-n-roll trivia.
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20 April 2004
(from billings), Khaaaaaaaann!!!!!!!.
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18 April 2004
Supermodel Personals. Some pictures artfully not for work.
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15 April 2004
*sigh*. Another internet meme. "1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions." My nearest book is Larry Niven's Three Books of Known Space, since my geek books have had a fairly recent cleaning. The sentence is "We were terrified". Thank you, and have a nice evening. I think I like BlueKanary's kissy kissy better. JM (cute but repressed catholic), MF (unstable), TS (taught how to give a great backrub), ES (if I hadn't become unstable, probably would have hitched), KS (omigod can clarinet players kiss well), HP (probalby just a pitykiss), and the current spousal overunit. Still bummed over SJ.
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Jesus Lacks Passon, Downsized.
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From out of the blue, I got an email from Tommy, the webmaster of AppleRock, the Little Rock Mac user's group. Tommy and I went to the same high school back in the 80s. He came across my name googling for some information about unix stuff for an AppleRock member. Aside from the joy of hearing from a friendly voice from my past (as opposed to those hostile voices in my head. gollum), it's cool that AppleRock is still around. Back in the 70's it was the Little Rock Apple Addicts. I'm happy they didn't throw out the geeky seventh grader that was me when I showed up to my first meeting. One cool thing from their website is this thing from Apple about recycling old computers.
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14 April 2004
From G/R-E.D, Villain Supply Company.
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From G-R/E.D, something on the internet involving goats that isn't totally disgusting. GoatFinder, and no it's not a dating service.
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13 April 2004
From talli-I-love-pants-and-ham-bbq, Some clips from the forthcoming Balloon Hat / The Movie.
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The internet continues to astound and amaze me. You're the man now dog (.com). Apparently this is Art. And apparently this Art has fans that generate similar content. Grand Rapper E-D says " I think these are al qaeda steganography sites.", although Nobody f*cks With The Jesus is spiritually comforting. Text NSFW. This was found from part of a legal brief about the Dustin Diamond domain name dispute. Apparently Dustin Diamond.com is Yet More Art and a parody, but the Fine Actor that as Screech apparently wants his name back. Considering the amazing contributions to society by Max. Goldburg as witnessed by yourethemannowdog.com, I believe that he should perservere in his quest to maintain dustindiamond.com, and should also parody other similar celebrities. who da dog now, man? Oh, and don't miss the interactive flashimation.
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Is it art?, an exciting excerpt from nearly 16 hours of bubble-wrap popping. As mamajo would say "don't do that! You'll get GERMS from TAIWAN!"
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Most recently posted images to LiveJournal, some may not be work safe, some may be offensive to general standards of decorum, taste, and general maturity. :-D LOL gtg rotflmao ur2kool.
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12 April 2004
hentai dictionary: japanese perversions, fetishes, and AV terms. No NSFW pictures on the page, but quite disturbing content nontheless.
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Neighborhood in Seattle has peep launching party. I wonder if Enna has anything to do with this.
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11 April 2004
And upon this third day, the Bunny did rise from the dead, hiding the eggs containing our sin amongst the countryside, yea verily so that we may collect upon them in our future. And the hosts of Peeps and Arch-Peeps did sing. All hail, and a very joyous Easter, no matter how you celebrate it.
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10 April 2004
A Tribute to Cadbury Eggs. Just one of those can send me in to Serious Sugar Shock.
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From rzolf, Panic's Japan vs. US Food Review Battle. "It has bitterness grassy-smelling. Furthermore, it is creamy. These play good harmony. I like it!". Rzolf was wondering "how the Panic guys can afford this snazzy office by selling a usenet reader.
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Nance pointed me to Subservient Chicken, dude in a chicken suit on a webcam obeying commands. Granted, for this-here interweb thingie, that's not too strange (and in the list of internet fetishes, it's pretty mild). What's truly strange is that this is sponsored by BK-the-burger-chain. The good folks over at BoingBoing have found a list of the commands obeyed. The links to the clips all seem to go to the "you're a bad boy" one now, so you have to type the commands into the chickenbox.
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9 April 2004
How Safecracking works. use the printable version if you don't want to click through dozens of pages.
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8 April 2004
From Scott Knaster, article on odd todd, homestar runner, and the badger/mushroom guy.
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Internet resource for all your alien communications needs. Well, almost
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7 April 2004
From G-R/E.D, Why engineers & their lawyers shouldn't do marketing material. "No dear, those pants don't make your butt look big, they make your butt look really big."
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From rzolf, Amazon reviews by Charles Henry Higgensworth III. Chcek out especially the Java book one, and the Senco A9 Palm Nailer. "Pontius P, take note!"
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6 April 2004
From G-R/E.D, NY Times article comes to the brilliant conclusion that too much coffee makes you irritable. Well, duh. What is really suspicious about this particular story is that it is a Graduate Student drinking 10 cups of Starbuck's coffee a day. The graduate sudents I know couldn't afford 10 cups of Starbucks a day. I don't think I could afford that.
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Chevy No-va / Not-Go story Not-True.
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It looks like My Generation is going to be really screwed in the Social Security department. The Boomers will suck an immense amount of income away from us, and the next generation will probably be dead by the time we retire.
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4 April 2004
Happy 04/04/04, or if your're in Europe, Happy 04/04/04.
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3 April 2004
Howard Shore coming to Pittsburgh to conduct the Lord Of The Rings music. We're going to brave the usual rude Pittsburgh audiences and risk going to this.
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Moo.
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2 April 2004
Apple store coming to Pittsburgh? In a sense this is Really Cool. In the other sense, our local store is probably screwed.
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From floggo, World's Flags Graded.
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From rzolf, iLife '84.
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Something Awful photoshop phriday on Unlikely Political Campaigns. I like the muppet ones, and the household appliances. Llamabot!
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Ever wondered what the strange image compositing modes in various graphic toolkits were all about? Now You Know, T. Porter and T. Duff's paper on compositing digital images.
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1 April 2004
Found on feenode, idler RPG, the ultimate in passive-aggressive entertainment.
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from jo2y, New Star-Trek Spinoff for the wannabe honorable fashion plate.
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From rzolf. It's kind of gross, Thorax Cake. Real Live Cake made up to look like a real gross thorax. Along with directions. The rib cage on the second page looks really cool, though.
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Quake ported to the Infocom Zork engine.
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30 March 2004
Another Billingslink, This Is Broken, about stuff found in the real world thats, well, broken.
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I am like totally ADD today. Craigslist now has a Pittsburgh, section, and I've been looking at the jobs every now and then. Usually it's stuff for male staff for Septic product events, or female with digital camera to refill tampon dispensers. And for awhile there were quite a number of medical trials advertised. But today is one that is completely inscrutible. Is it for Amway? Scientology? Greeter at the new Wal-Mart in Delmont?
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From Billings-san, Trunk Monkey. This appeared here a long time ago with just the original Trunk Monkey film. There are now three more.
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Blah blah Lord of the Rings Movies blah blah blah. One of the really incredible achievements of the movie is the soundtrack. We recently picked up the CDs for the last two movies, and I'm totally blown away by the music. One thing I can't stop listening to is Gollum's Song, which is played over the credits. Just about everything associated with that little creep is amazing (We've been watching the Extended Dance Remix DVD along with the several weeks of Making Of Videos) Anyway, Gollum's Song is on par with Adagio For Strings for putting me into a deep moody funk. If you haven't heard it, there is a Music Video with clips from the movie. Unfortunately the compressor used makes the sound a little tinny and metalic. And there are lyrics if you want to have a sing-a-long.
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Teh m0By SpaNiArD must be bored at school today. He passes on NewsMap, a way of seeing a ton of current headlines.
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Something Awful forum goons do the Tarot Card Tango.
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Archive from The Book Of Ratings. Random lists of stuff given grades. Like the ratings for Pasta Shapes (I),
Agnolotti: These are chubby little ravioli, and the name means "fat little lambs." Cute! That's a lovely little image, fat lambs frolicking in a field of cream sauce with a bunch of hideously overgrown scallops and occasionally being stabbed with the massive fork of a vengeful god.
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Another snowflake design app. Plus a huge pile of other flash stuff at the same site.
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From t3h m0by jAvOr, Small World, a Dennis Leary wannabe comments on friendster.
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29 March 2004
Top ten worst album covers.
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If you're travelling the PA turnpike, and decide to have car problems, make sure you have them between mile markers 100 and 127, near Somerset. Coming back from VA on Saturday night, the hedgehog decided it didn't want to surpass 3000 RPM (we think it may be fuel line/pump/filter related). The towing company (Herring Motors) was fantastic. They took us to Greensburg (which was something like 60 miles. Thank heaven for AAA Plus), and the driver was very professional, and a really nice guy. Made a potentially grumpy situation actually pretty pleasant. Luckily Kebbin-n-Deb were having dinner and a Lowes run in Greensburg, so they gave us a ride home from the dealer.
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HiMonkey goes on adventure Deep in the belly of the NPR Beast. Baking ovens! Mixer Joysticks!
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23 March 2004
So can you tell I'm recovering for a couple of stressful weeks on a gig? MilkAndCookies, a whole bunch of strange flash animations and video, like Maryland Cookies, and Madness Combat III.
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I guess it's a new flashmeme going around (having poached it from Flutterby). Samorost, kind of like Myst meets Fantastic Planet.
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Live Journal and AIM conversations of North Korean leader Kim Jong II.
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Seen on CHanson's journal, The LilyPoind music engraving system, including a treatise on how things like Finale suck. There's also an interview with the developers (one of the more hostile, yet interesting, online interviews I've read in a long time).
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SomethingAwful has another photoshop comedy goldmine, Toys: A Reality, involving ordinary every day toys that have escaped into the Real World.
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22 March 2004
The Strange Synchronicity of the Last Breakfast, or how two artists, doing a parody of the same painting involving cereal-box mascots, end up using some of the same characters. OH THE HORROR! IT MUST BE PLAGARISM!
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21 March 2004
For those that enjoy Cute Kitten Pictures, Fark Photoshop of a (non-cliche) Kitten.
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19 March 2004
From G-R/E.D, Devil Duckie, a portable USB Flash drive. Their USB cables are also, uh, tasteful.
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16 March 2004
Some folks have doubted the existance of "Ham BBQ" in the Western PA area (which is taking some ham, some bbq sauce, putting into a crock-pot and steeping until it becomes a revolting sodium overload) Here is a registration form from the local xtian FM station about a media day. Check out near the end. Also, Nauticom Sports thing, and look for the Butler Boosters. You can also be fancy and make your own sauce. Or just use the KraftFoods basic recipe.
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15 March 2004
Trudy Streett from College introduced me to Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book, which is a gift I generally give to folks who have just had babies. As Redtoade said, "that book is quite disturbing. me thinks that the wife has taken you two off the list of potential god parent candidates". I found an Online Version of some (most?) of the pages.
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Found on MemePool, 213 Things that Rob Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army. The Chicken and Rice MRE is *not* a personal lubricant
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Ack! I almost missed it. Happy Pi Day!
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12 March 2004
Pooched from Flutterby, Life after the Video Game Crash. You have to respect (?) an article that can use Remember the first Roy-Orbison-wrapped-in-shrinkwrap erotic fiction story you read? Of course. Do you remember the 207th one? Only vaguely. with a straight face. (whoa. there's a Roy Orbison in Cling Wrap audio track on that page.)
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Thanks to the efforts of DougEDoug, BorkLog is now Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional, courtesy of the w3c. My life is complete now.
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From Billings, The Two Towers (in ten minutes). Looks like it's gone over quota.
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11 March 2004
From Billings, Imaginary Girlfriends. Under 'girlfriends wanted', "We're looking for someone who can provide an authentic long-distance girlfriend experience with a minimum of actual interaction.". Some days I just love the internet.
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From the world of FoodIsWorseThanCrack, American Exports of Obesity, and the link between technology, obesity, and the modern phenonema of instant gratification.
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10 March 2004
Live Active badger badger badger badger (mushroom mushroom).
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Found on SomethingAwful, The Omegans Are Liars, a lot of high-velocity weirdness to start the day.
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Gig Alert: The Spousal Overuint & I will be playing with the Edgewood Symphony (warning, website is mid-90's flavor) out in Monroeville PA on saturday. It's at 7:30 at Gateway Middle School.
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9 March 2004
Bus Error. Passengers Dumped.
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8 March 2004
Bovine Rectal Palpation Simulator. Sorry guys, it's not a Flash game.
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7 March 2004
Caring for your introvert, which sounds as lot like me. Especially introverts are people who find other people tiring. Parties and other social gatherings leave me totally wiped out.
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6 March 2004
A whole bunch of cool flash things, from a springy tree view, to a calendar done with pencil and eraser, to spinning a stack of blocks to other weird stuff.
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He did it for science, this time it's banging a RealDoll.
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FireFly Movie woooo!!
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5 March 2004
Bull Session With Professor IPod, a sociological deconstruction of personal music spaces and the iPod. Or something like that.
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History of the Penguin Whacking Game.
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3 March 2004
Mona Lisa originally had a mustache.
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PreReviews, reviews of movies that the reviewer hasn't seen yet.
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29 February 2004
From nutters, Tww-Closings, what happens when you allow folks to enter their own messages for weather closing reports. Some good ones are what you say! and BSOD.
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27 February 2004
Chris Hanson has a thing on It's hard to find good developers.
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One of the things that my sister & I (and now Anne's hubby) do when we visit the folks is to put little signs around, usually poking fun at some piece of artwork in progress, or just generally being strange (like JK's "Don't look in the Cabbage!" on a post-it note on the cabinet door.) One of the things on Mom's fabric pinning board was part of a quilt pattern that looked like a double-headed axe. So of course I remembered the Oh my God! There's an axe in my head! pages, made a little face, and made about 20 post-it notes with different translations, so Mom can mix-and-match as her whim takes her. I'd like to take this time to blow my own horn (virtually, I do enough of that in real life). I'm mentioned on footnote 15, regarding the
k:-O emoticon.
We had to make one small change to get the "Oh my God!" element across [since I originally had k:-), but k:-O is the logical evolution], but there's no doubt that Mark's twist on Scott Fahlman's ARPANET invention is absolutely brilliant. This is one of our favorite entries, ever. Bravo.
Yeah, and someone discovered something similar two years before i did, but that's the way things go. Still, having an emoticon on a listing of axe in the head phrases is something to be proud of. Uh, I think. Well, maybe not. Actually, I think I should have k:-O engraved on my tombstone.
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26 February 2004
Wheee, it never rains but it pours. I've been quite the last week or so. The mom-unit had a medical emergency and I'm in Omaha (she's back from the hospital and is doing great). Also this week my mother-in-law passed away (she had been slowly withering away from MS, so her passing is a blessing). 2004 is not shaping up to be a great year so far. Hopefully I'll be back on the blogfeed next week.
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20 February 2004
From rzolf, The Viagra Prank, dude orders viagra online, then takes it in church.
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19 February 2004
Found on boingboing, Learn Writing with Uncle Jim. A professional fiction writer talks about the writing process.
A note on names. In first drafts I often name my characters for their functions in the plot. The hero's buddy may be named "Buddy," while a minor viewpoint character may be named "Walkon" or "Cannon Fodder." Global Search-and-Destroy with a wordprocessor makes giving them all reasonable names easy in a subsequent draft, and makes keeping them straight easy in an early draft.
Having been doing a lot of nonfiction writing, it's interesting seeing the parallels and differences. From the forum is a link to Turkey City Lexicon, with descriptions for writing errors, like Bathos, Sudden change in level of diction. "The massive hound barked in stentorian voice then made wee-wee on the carpet."
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In a case of mistaken identity, Oxford engineering student delivers lectures in Bejing on global economics.
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Also from the blort, Draw Your Boss. As G-R/E.D. says some of those DYB pix look more like therapy than anything else.
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Found on the Everlasting Blort, Cereal Box Archive, hundreds and hundreds of cereal boxes. Who can forget Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs or Moonstones?
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18 February 2004
For those folks who enjoy JerkCity (content usually NSFW, but the pictures usually are), you can now Build Your Own.
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17 February 2004
a quick look at the Win2k source (doesn't actually contain any of the code, just some comments from the code, and some analysis of the code that the author has looked at).
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16 February 2004
IE Security hole found in W2K source code leak. Way to go, using a signed integer for an
offset. Now all we have to do is create a BMP with bfOffBits > 2^31.
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Found over in the land O'Knaster, I Feel Great, an ad(?) for Nutrigrain bars (?).
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From Billings, crazy machine. Requires flash and lower-case letters.
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13 February 2004
I was going through the borkware web server logs today, and saw a coupe of hits from del.icio.us. I immediately thought it was was a spam request (I seem to get a number of "refererrs" from blog or porn sites that don't actually link, just put stuff in my logs so I view the page). Turns out del.icio.us is a collaborative social bookmarks manager, and there's a lot of interesting links there. Like One hundred Albums you should remove from your collection immediately.
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11 February 2004
Old-School mac folks might remember "Despair", an existential god simulator, where you can play a jealous God. Some folks have tweaked the original version so it works on OS X (in Classic). Get it here. "more people"
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and I'm like fersher that like some folks are like campaigning against like the overuse of like "like" in like modern speech. Like it's one of things that like drives me nuts, like the "you know" that like all the sports figures when they're like interviewed like to like say a lot.
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A couple of folks have AIMed me with "check this out... http://blahblahblah/osama_capture.php", which I am guessing is from some windows virus trojan crap that is spamming people's buddy lists. What can I tell these folks to use so they can clean it off their system? found it, CNN says it's them downloading BuddyLinks, which installs AIMspamware.
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From redtoade, airplane crash database.
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10 February 2004
Something Awful has found parts of the script of the third Star Wars abomination movie.
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New stuff over at RatherGood, including a kitten appearance in the Zoology Dragon song.
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9 February 2004
From L.L.Beanpole, N.A.D.D, nerd attention deficit disorder.
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8 February 2004
From #davb in #openacs, Video Toaster source released.
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6 February 2004
From Feanor on #macdev, Alex Chiu RPG. You may remember Alex as the purveyor of magnetic healing rings. As mobodo said, for every asshole, there's a brilliant person to make fun of him. Be sure to check out Alex's Alex Chiu's New Darwinism. As it says on the page, FULL OF ANIMATED GIF'S AND WONDERFUL GRAPHICS. A MUST STUDY FOR ALL SCIENTISTS. . Dilute! Dilute! OK! (although that's really Dr. Bronner. His soaps are awesome.)
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EXTREME KNITTING!!!, well not really. Just a new fad amongst 'young urban Americans'. The SF Guardian does a bit on EXTREME KNITTING!!! amongst young urban professionals.
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5 February 2004
For reasons beyond my comprehension, I'm getting back into C++. The feenode #c++ IRC channel has a nice page of resources.
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Found on Fark, Scientists to be allowed to examine 9300 year-old remains of Patrick Stewart.
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4 February 2004
Mice produce sperm from monkeys. Three-headed skunkapotamus not far behind.
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3 February 2004
I know chmod.
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Found in the alt tag of an achewood cartoon, Portraits, which can feature you and Stevie Nicks. I never knew that Stevie Nicks was such a spiritual icon, but I guess if people find inspiration and comfort in Her visiage, then it must be OK.
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2 February 2004
From boingboing, Touchy-Feely Gallery 1, Oil paintings of sock puppets. SOCK PUPPETS!!!
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Scott "The Body" Knaster had a pointer to World66, a place where you can tick off the places you've been and see a map of your travels. Here's mine for the US:
Now I wish it had a setting for 'just passed through' vs 'actually visited'
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31 January 2004
From boingboing, Uncle Patrick's Advice to Children. It's more akin to Uncle Shelby's ABZ book than to true useful advice, but much in there is funny (if a bit crude at times).
Pajamas are indeed comfy, but society dictates we not wear them to school, work or the bowling alley.
For that matter, be aware that bowling alley employees may have a limited tolerance for other non-pajama-related behaviors, such as getting all loaded and pretending to be Godzilla and stomping on that windmill over there in the indoor miniature golf course.
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Umami Tsunami has a bit on Speed Dating TIps for the Single Guy, or how not turn into an automaton. (dee dee, da dee dah)
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30 January 2004
I just now noticed that ScottK also has a Food and Weight Related Blog, Food is worse than crack.
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29 January 2004
The CocoaDev Wiki has been having a fun discussion on sorting methods. Someone brought up the Radix Sort, which I haven't thought about in years. I first saw that in a college FORTRAN class I took in high school, thinking "wow, that's cool!" (of course, if someone showed me the bubble sort at the same time, I would have thought the same thing), but it is a cool little sorting algorithm.
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28 January 2004
Hieronymus Bosch is one of my favorite artists. His stuff is so creepy weird, especially considering the time when it was created. In the SomethingAwful Turn that frown upside down, art! photoshop thread, is this wonderful Bosch adaptation.
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25 January 2004
While talking to teh moby bitshiftzor, I waxed nostalgically about the VA DMV, which was a total dream to deal with when compared to theh orror of Pennsylvania DMV. With VA, for a license renewal, I"d walk into a branch location, and after a short (sometimes no) wait, I'd deal with a pleasant person and get my business done. In PA, you usually end up going to two or three different offices and a Notary, with everyone grumpy. One of the cool VA things is how disgustingly easy it is to get a Vanity plate. They even have a website where you can preview your plate.
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From jo2y, A touching valentine sentiment.
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24 January 2004
From rzolf, Arch Enemy, dude eats nothing but McDonalds for a month. His health, not surprisingly, goes to Hell.
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Over on folklore.org, Busy Being Born, photographs of the Lisa / Mac GUI as it evolved.
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From ScottK, Folklore, Andy Hertzfeld's (another one of my childhood idols) collaborative diary about the development of the Macintosh. There is fascinating stuff in there for the old-school MacHeads in the audience.
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To play around with my GarageBand/MIDI hackage, I decided to toggle in the classic Hymn A Mighty Fortress into Finale, and pull it into GB, and slightly tweak it for the New Age. I hope folks enjoy MegaFortress.
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23 January 2004
:'-(
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The Smoking Gun has a big collection of backstage riders from over a hundred different groups. I'm amused that Elton John is listed under Divas.
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22 January 2004
Rumor has it that Cattlecar Erotica will be six new episodes.
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Found on x23.net, a review of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Big Rigs is a game so astoundingly bad that it manages to transcend nearly every boundary put forth by some of gaming's absolute worst of the worst and easily makes it into that dubiously extraordinary category of being one of the most atrocious games ever published.
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Found on ebay, PFHT, Pet Foil hat Technology. STOP BRAIN SCANS!
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RetroCrush has an interview with Ruth Buzzi. I still remember the flying saucer show.
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21 January 2004
Yay. New Borkware, CryptoGrammer, handy little aid for solving those cryptogram puzzles in the crossword magazines on the news-stand. I'm still impressed with the old NeXTstep new Cocoa toolkit. I got it pretty much working in an hour, and got it feature complete in under a day
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Bum Wines Reviewed. For the discriminating out-of-work dot-com former yuppied.
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Found on Flutterby, long-distance penguin batting game (Flash)
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From oo-mahn-skee, Interactive Yurt Builder.
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Looks like GarageBand won't import MIDI files. Bummer. I found a way to hack around it.
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20 January 2004
I just installed GarageBand. Holy smokes it's cool. I'm used to making music with stuff you can blow into, not this electronic computer stuff. Existing software has always looked daunting in its complexity. This thing is pretty easy - I think they've found the sweet spot between functionality and flexibility, doing neat things quickly. Part of the GarageBand EULA is to foist your first mp3 upon the world. Sorry. Now to actually go read docs to see what it can really do.
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19 January 2004
Now this is a book I can enjoy.
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Need some quotes? Come to the Quotations Page. Tons o' quotes.
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18 January 2004
WeatherPixie. It builds little cartoons that represent the weather in your area.
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bughunter in #macdev forwarded on this bit of Windows Server 2003 documentation, talking about "Crazy Uptimes". Unix people just sit back and chuckle. jaufrec in #openacs had an interesting observation: "In fact, I argue that building a complex system out of obviously unreliable parts is likely to produce a more stable system than one made out of mostly reliable parts, because you will have to plan for failure from the beginning, instead of being surprised"
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Found on Fark, Violia getting the respect it deserves. I actually tried to learn to play the viola once, but too many years of trombone had messed up my left wrist. I still enjoy hearing the viola, and I enjoy viola players. And viola jokes. "What do you do with a dead viola player? Move them back a stand." is my favorite.
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Silly magazines that have been published this year.
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I wish I had this kind of spare time. Comparison of the sizes of the two Death Stars.
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Chris Hanson points out Windows viruses cost more in one year than a manned mission to Mars will over ten..
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16 January 2004
Guy turns his DelSol into a Rebel Fighter.
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15 January 2004
From teh moby konger, DonkeyKonga, which actually looks like a lot of fun.
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13 January 2004
deus ex macarena.
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From G-R/E.D, Fans Outraged at New Character in The Return Of The King.
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From Scott's blog, Jewsmas. In a well-meaning but misguided attempt to be "inclusive", Christian society has cast Chanukah in the role of the "Jewish Christmas". To liberate our ancient holiday from this false role, we introduce a new holiday, the true Jewish Christmas, Jewsmas. Now leave Chanukah the hell alone!
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Mac Programming Old-Timers probably recognize the name Scott Knaster. he worked at Apple, and wrote a couple of early influential Mac programming books. I've had the chance to meet him here at a Big Nerd Ranch class. He has a blog. Wheeee.
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9 January 2004
From Da Grand Rapper (E/D), Irish Curse Generator.
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Mahna Mahna. doo doo, dee doo doooo.
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From The Billings, Microsoft toolbars taken to their logical extreme.
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The Mystery of Hostess Choco-Diles.
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RefGrunt. weblog of a reference desk worker.
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8 January 2004
From #jo2y, Rats, foiled again.
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7 January 2004
One of the few video games in the 80's (outside of Gauntlet) that I pumped a lot of quarters into was Dig Dug EDug. Retrocrush Salutes DigDug.
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Found on Chris Hanson's LJ, Offshoring Programmers is Bad Strategy for Software Companies.
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6 January 2004
Billings posted in #wplug How I Made A Hacker Out Of A Slacker. Now I have this urge to go sell Grit. The Ackxhpawz site has a lot of nifty stuff in it, like the Dinky Dog cartoon, that when shown in 1919 Deemed " ribald, inflammatory & extremely unfunny" at the time, the film was consistantly met with an uproar wherever it was shown. Imagine what the audience of the time would do with Itchy and Scratchy, or even the tentacle porn stuff from Japan.
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5 January 2004
Shamlessly stolen from Chunks, "Is it me or does it concern anyone else that this is a picture of NASA?"
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Sagging sales? Poor attendance at your organization or event? Contact I See Jesus to create a fake Jesus sighting, and take advantage of the gullible. No idea if it's for real, or just a parody.
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Balloon Molecules, using animal balloons for showing chemical structures. Here's the pictures. The site includes a nice concise introduction on balloon twisting basics.
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From EnnaNoop, Evil Cookies. there is icing profanity in one, if you're worried about work.
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It's the wooda-wooda wand.
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Two(?) words I'd never thought I'd see together.
OddTodd FanArt.
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A brief history of time water guns.
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Spirit Mars Lander Pictures. US Probe Lands on Mars, begins search for WMD. Similarly, Mission to find lemmings on Mars suffers new setback. In a more serious vein, NASA has some info(e) on NASA Connections to Everyday Life, common-society benefits of the space program (aside from the inherent coolness of rockets and stuff)
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Robert C. Martin comments on the current internet technology hype. Web Services? What has the industry been smoking? It's trendy, it's the magic bullet, therefore the industry stampedes in that direction like a herd of mad cows.
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4 January 2004
Dan at Flutterby had a pointer to Spirits In Stone, The new face of African Art, including a large number of Stone Sculptures. The Atlanta airport had (has? I'll know next week) a lot of large modern African stone scupltures in the people-mover area beyond the gestappo security curtain. I spent a pretty fair chunk of time, while waiting of a flight or waiting to be picked up, getting a good close look at the work there. I like modern art, finding things that are more abstract to be much more interesting than things that are more representational, and I found this installation of African stone art to be truly fascinating. The coloring of the stone (which is done with heat, wax, and polish) is extremely rich, and seems to be glowing. Resisting the urge to go into mock art critic mode (the existential representationalism expressed the pigmentform duality between the rough hewn granite texture and polished colored stone underscores the dielectical confusion inherant in the artists symbolism. and sex.), it was just plain cool.
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From memepool, Acid Trip Drawing. Artist is given a dose of LSD and free access to art supplies.
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3 January 2004
We went and saw Return o' The King yesterday with Redtoade and The Vessel. Everyone in the theater was very well behaved. Except for the pair right behind me. Some incredibly overweight guy (didn't have enough hair to have a mullet) and an incredibly emaciated 5 year old. The kid spilled a huge drink on the floor, not once, but twice. Poor Sharlotte ended up resting her feet on a pile of napkins and a popcorn bag. In addition to the usual running commentary "what's that?" "must be somebody" "he's ugly", the kid was a power cruncher, one of those open-mouthed eaters that can turn a single kernel of popcorn into a Mahler-lengthy symphony of noise. Needless to say, crunching sounds right behind me is a big pet peeve. Needless to say, I'm not going to any movies in this area again. Seems like the folks raised in a barn always set up shop near me. Gah! Outside of that, we had a lovely time with the 'Toades.
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2 January 2004
One thing my wonderful parents sent me for the Solstace was the complete set of The Prisoner (link to a fan site). After watching the Final Episode this evening, I must say that I've witnessed TV weirder than Twin Peaks.
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Found over on the Everlasting Blort, Two Things Rule the World, the future of advertising. A cartoon parable for our day. Contains some written obscenities for the squemish.
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1 January 2004
Hippo Newt's Ears and all that stuff. We had a pleasant New Year's Eve last night. Went over to Kebbin-n-Debs, had some pizza, watched The Muppet Movie. Which judging from the date came out when I was in 5th grade. After watching it for the first time in many years, I realize that quite a bit of my sense of humor was influenced by the Muppets. I guess there are worse things to be influenced by.
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31 December 2003
daveb has a Chump IRC bot running in #openacs where folks can record interesting URLs. He has it in the OpenACS IRC Weblog. There are usually a couple of good URLs every day, ranging from CMS to software engineering to computer geek toys to Talli and his lack of Pants. (well, luckily no so much of the latter any more, but it shows up occasionally).
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After dodging the bullet with out of date website backups, I've finally deployed (and wrote up) a backup strategy. Wheeee.
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Achewood is slacking off at this end-of-year time, with folks running guest strips. Jesse Reklaw did one. If you don't recognize the name, you might know about Slow Wave. Folks send him dreams and he draws a four-panel strip.
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30 December 2003
From Baron VonChunkenstein, Geek Pecking Order, or, "I'm less geeky than them".
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From jdrake on #macdev, Awful Plastic Surgery. No gross pictures (at least on the front page), except for photos of celebrities from several years ago vs them now.
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I was catching up on my Perl Guru from my AOL days. He's now retired, taking classes in engineering and math at the local community college, and is active in amateur satellite stuff, which is pretty cool.
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29 December 2003
We went to see Return of the King last night. Surprisingly enough, we had only one truly obnoxious group near us. There was a group of 7 or 8 kids in the back that were having a running commentary or something through most of the movie (luckily they kept their voices low so all that was heard was the sibliant whispering sounds. Which happen to travel amazing distances. Fortunately 3/4 of the movie was loud enough to drown them out) And I guess one of their number was a Trenchcoat Mafia wanna-be, who let out some forced laughter at (generally) inappropriate times, like in the very opening scene after Aragon strangled Gimili to death (or something like that), he let out a "ha ha ha ha ha that's funny" in the otherwise quiet/stunned theater. Other than that, it's a good movie, if a little long. The ending is kind of drawn-out, but the Hobbit 3-way in that big bed should raise a few eyebrows.
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28 December 2003
Humansky has a midget fetish. Here is a flash game for him.
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Paint by numbers, a logic picture-solving puzzle. The horizontal and vertical axes have numbers to tell you how many runs of colored squares there are. Figure out which squares are to be colored and you form a picture.
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Humansky pointed me to this everything you know about the calendar is WRONG!!!1!!. Someone who takes things a little too seriously. I also like the DAYS LAST 48 HOURS!!!!. I wonder if there's a page later on saying "HAMBURGER ISN'T MADE OF HAM!!!!!!!!!1!!!!"
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27 December 2003
Stolen from Backup Brain, for those going to see RotK suggested bathroom break times.
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Odd Todd Holiday Card, 2003.
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Lots of Holiday Flash coming out of the woodwork. Today it's Baking Ginger Cookies. Cut, bake, decorate, and send to your fiends.
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24 December 2003
Woo hoo! Looks like RedMonk is moving up in the job world. The new place ContentCommunications has probably the first real brochure-ware website (I just want to reach out and fold my screen). The page title is kind of unfortunate for projecting that Professional Image, but doing a Google on Untitled Page yields a lot of hits.
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One of Yahoo's Picks this year, Truck-Driver's Gear Change Hall of Shame. In this context, a Truck-Driver's Gear Change is an abrubt key change in a song. The site includes samples.
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This one is for Humansky: Pastor fighting porn with midgets.
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I enjoy most of the Fark and Something Awful Photoshops. One of Fark's (Inappropriate product placement in movies) had me giggling at Khan!, along with inappropriate movie placements in your favorite product.
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From King, Badgers in the comics.
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From jo2y, a quiz to determine your fundamental moral compass in relation to the metaphysical foundation of your philosophical being. Which Care Bear Are You?. I'm Wish Bear.
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23 December 2003
Tammy, a photojournal about living near to a paranoid schizophrenic. Also on Retrocrush, Battle of the Misers. Ooooh I'm Mister Heat Miser, I'm Mister Sun...
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22 December 2003
Gig Alert for those of you nearthe Greater Leechburg (PA) Megaplex. Both the spousal overunit & I will be performing in the First Lutheran Christmas-Eve pre-service concert. Starts at 8:00 p.m., Dec 24rd. I got drafted to play in the handbell choir (which totally melts my brain. Putting the notes in the right place is not too difficult, and is good for my subdivision, but figuring out the choreography of juggling 4 or 5 different bells on a piece can get crazy) Plus the S.O. & I will be doing a nice oboe/bassoon duet (with piano) of Away in a Mangy Thing Manger.
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The World's Worst Food, more promotional recipe leaflets from manufacturing companies. Cooking with Crisps is a true horror. And living in the Pittsburgh area, gotta love Heinz.
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So some folks have been asking "what happened", especially since this is my second week-long outage in a calendar year. (as my friend Aaron told me, "You have the nuttiest hosting stories!"). So here's the deal as far I as I understand it. I host with a group called Acorn Hosting, a small shop based in Seattle that specializes in AOLServer and OpenACS, two webby technologies near and dear to my heart. Their rates are extremely reasonable, and service is outstanding. They lease machines from several dedicated service providers. It looks like one of them (the one which had my sites on it) decided to suddenly go out of business, unplug the machines, and vanish from the face of the earth, leaving the Cathy (who runs Acorn Hosting) in a real bind. A day or two after the Great Outage, she had me up and running on a new vserver on a new machine with a different service provider. That's how I was able to put my by "go away please" page. She managed to track down the original hosting guy and talk him into making the machine available to get most of the data off of. (given Acorn's policy of 'backups are your own responsibility', this is truly above-and-beyond the call of duty) I do have backups, they're just not organized well. Into this whole mix, I was wrapping up a 3-month long Borkware consulting gig, and couldn't spare the time to get the website contents restored. I wrapped things up on Friday, and spent the weekend getting databases restored and tweaking code to work with Postgresql 7.3 (some of the date/time syntax has changed) I still need to get my mailer working, and other assorted odds and ends, but things should be working now. If you find anything broken, please let me know. But in short, the Acorn Hosting folks were put in a very tough situation, and worked incredibly hard to resolve it. I'm sticking with them since they've treated me very, very well.
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This guy Really hates garden Gnomes.
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21 December 2003
From Dr. Vinod, Wild world of Bork, including the door to his Bork Team office. there's 5 pages of forums there, basically worshipping you in spanish.
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Woo, I say Woo Hoo. We seem to be back. I'm still restore sites and getting stuff fixed here and there (the move involved upgrading postgresql versions, which broke some queries involving timestamps). In the mean time, let himonkey braves Christmas trees in their native habitat.
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12 December 2003
Guy builds a real-life Battlemech, well, it doesn't move, but it sure looks cool.
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11 December 2003
Found on boingboing, Octodog, now you can make your own Cthulhu heads! Fun for the whole family while you wait for the Old Ones to eat you!
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Quick Grammar Quiz, I got 9 out of 10 (mainly because of the lay/lie/laid thing I never could get in High School). I'm curious what some of the Pitt #wplug denizens would get. I never did particularly well with grammar in school, but I seem to know it pretty well now. Western Pennsylvania has this construct that makes me cringe every time I hear it. Two examples of it: "The car needs washed" and "If it's broken, it needs fixed". *shudder*.
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10 December 2003
For those of you into AcheWood, someone has made a Lego Rabbit Ambulance. The Lego Deathstar is pretty neat too. It's reminiscent of Pomodoro's Sculpture. (another piece of Pomodoro's stuff)
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From teh moby musical fetishist, a cappella christmas music station.
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Hacking Big Mouth Billy Bass in Linux. Use your penguin to control a robotic fish. I wish I could read the history books of our centry that'll be published in a couple hundred years.
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From DougEDoug, where the plots for Voyager and Enterprise come from.
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Map of recent earthquake activity in the US. On the map I saw today, it looks like NE Arkansas has gotten some small activity. In Arkansas History, they told us about the New Madrid Earthquake in 1811. The fact that still stays with me is "The Mighty Mississippi ran backward". And of course, the region is long overdue for a repeat. The USGS has a page on New Madrid too.
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8 December 2003
Who Will Be Eaten First?, ChickTracts meet the Lovecraft mythos.
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From the Emiloid, Holidy Snowglobe, upset a beautiful holiday domestic scene. It's worth watching the individual players do their things. I'm frightend of snowmen now.
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Visual Sentences, based on a pictorial langauge. Some of the sample sentences are a bit odd.
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6 December 2003
From JK, Two-towers, badgerstyle, from the badger-badger-badger-badger/mushroom-mushroom guy.
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PeteJ sent along Santa Tossing. So far my record is 143.5 167.8 meters.
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5 December 2003
From Chunks, When GoatSe meets modern publishing. (picture is work-safe, mental images evoked are your own problem)
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A story from a real-life sample lady, stuck pushing clam chowder samples at a wholesale club. I wasn't entirely alone in the basement. There was another sample lady named Teresa who was working the aisle across from me. She was in charge of giving out pizza pops and had been doing so for 8 months. Within about 2 minutes of talking to her, I could tell that she was totally deranged.
Turns out this is from a satire site. I can still picture some of the folks I knew in colelge who were working on worthless degrees writing this.
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Even though I'm not particulary a Japanophile, this collection of Seldom Asked Questions is fascinating. Also contains the answer to the "what is the sound of one hand clapping" question.
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Autopsy, a description of how they'r done, along with cartoon illustrations of each stage of the process.
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4 December 2003
Bummer. I had missed Odd Todd's Halloween Special on halloween. I guess a yuletide viewing will have to do for me.
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From redtoade, MakeAFlake. Don't miss redtoade's Flake O' Death.
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From daveb on #openacs, Web Services are not Distributed Objects
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3 December 2003
oof. Amazon Customer recommendations for Michael Jackson's "Number Ones"
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From the UberBillings, BadgerCam. Hot badger-on-badger action, late at night, with a British accent. Rowrrr!!
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2 December 2003
New Babylon 5 stuff in the works?
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Statistical analysis of the Cathy (newspaper cartoon) sweat-factor. I am in awe.
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Robert C. Martin (whose opinion I value) has a brief screed on his Artima Weblog, Debuggers are a wasteful Timesink, which is an amusing happenstance since I'll be talking about gdb, the GNU debugger at WPLUG in December. The actual posting is somewhat of a straw-man argument, but the resulting comments are very interesting, particularly the folks who see a real use and need for a debugger tool (like me) who are primarily in the C and C++ world, and those folks who haven't touched one in years (the Java and scriping crowd), also along with the "having to wallow around in someone else's big messy code base" (like me) and the folks who are able to do new development with a TDD (Test-Driven Development) methodology.
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29 November 2003
You can download VisiCalc, the original personal computer spreadsheet. (unfortunately it's the PC version, not the Apple ][ version). What's cool is that it is 27K.
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New videos over at RatherGood, including a new communist kittens video.
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28 November 2003
SomethingAwful had a Photoshop Phriday where they created fake mideval tapestries, including this one from the age of Sir Robin.
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26 November 2003
pretty pictures of the sun from the SOHO satellite. The pictures are in the SlideShow referenced at the top of the story.
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Another reason I don't use ATMs: XP worm infects Cash Machine.
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An msnbc fluff-piece where Peter Jackson comments on LoTR continuity errors.
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25 November 2003
From teh moby googlemight, International Society for Bayesian Analysis, saying "I didn't realize there were statistics cults."
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Found in the world of Billings-san, Subversive CrossStitch. I find it pretty amsuing (even though the humor is not particularly subtle). One thing I liked is their mailing list instructions:
To be notified when the site is updated, join our MAILING LIST:
use the subject line "ME TOO"
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Beaver Attacks Bus
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24 November 2003
What happens if you replace 'wand' with 'wang' in the first Harry Potter book.
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estimating the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
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21 November 2003
From Dangi, The Road to Pamplona.
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20 November 2003
Who Would You Kill?. Pick an annoying character from your favorite TV show, and kill 'em. I didn't know there was so much latent hostility felt for Dipsy. What's interesting is the uniform distribution on Gilligan's Island
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18 November 2003
London Tube Map, in 3-D.
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17 November 2003
From DaveB, the Domo-Fon.
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13 November 2003
From Domo-Kun, Proof there is no God. The comments are fun. The ancient Etruscans had a saying, "There is a noise that is so loud, it cannot be heard." So it is with Hasselhoff.
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From Porruka, Those Darn Accordians, retro-punk postmodern grunge squeezebox action. They have music. I'm really enjoying hamsterman.
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sigh. Someone's been sending spam with @badgertronics.com as the return address. Bastards.
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12 November 2003
From boingboing, a neat little flashimation on how legos are made.
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Found in the world of zman, One Good Thing by the Real Live Preacher, on how things evolve from doing "one good thing for Jesus" into an institution.
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11 November 2003
Fall Troubleshooting Professional Magazine, this time using WD-40 to fix intermittent computer problems.
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Atsa lotta crosses.
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After a hiatus, MacEdition is back with another bork special: Undology 101.
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9 November 2003
Johnny Dangerously predicts the future: this shoots through schools.
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7 November 2003
The Story About The Toddler continues. Volume 8 has a great deal of keen insight.
When you fall, daddy will try to catch you. Usually. Daddy feels that his job as a parent is to keep you from being injured, not to keep you from falling.
and
The things that will terrify any given child are ENTIRELY RANDOM.
Cordelia is driven into fits of screaming terror by the Teletubbies’ vacuum cleaner. And she is terrified of the cute stuffed bunny I bought her, which has five legs and two heads
And then proceeds to deconstruct the super-sweet small child television shows.
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6 November 2003
Al Gunther is an amazing artist, who carves and sculpts eggshells
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The clearning house for all your poison ivy needs.
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5 November 2003
From Rzolf, Lederhosen Lucil, who he saw in concert last night:
oh my god
it is some pretty cute girl
who wears
lederhosen
and plays keyboards
and does raps
about scabs
and non linear video editing systems.
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4 November 2003
So, this last weekend, a small group of us drove down to the Shenandoah Valley for a long, get-away weekend. Shock of shocks, I did not take a computer with me on the trip - just a crossword puzzle book and some cheesy Star Wars novels, in honor of Crazy Erin. As an aside, I love clean, pristine crossword puzzle books (my favorites are from Penny Press) - they're like the unspoiled vista that the backyard becomes after a fresh snow. And then I get bored and go stomping. The Bed&Breakfast we stayed at was the Inn At Narrow Passage, which is probably a couple of hour drive from the DC area. If you're wanting an escape from that region, I highly recommend it.
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A request for the photographers out there: I'm looking to buy a new Nikon Coolpix 4500 camera. Are there any places online that a) carry it [a number of places, like Calumet, don't have it on their website, and the Big Name electronics places also don't have it on their websites that I've been able to find] b) aren't totally fly-by-night, in case there's something wrong with it. (I don't mind paying a little extra for the peace of mind of being able to have it fixed without a lot of hassle.)
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Gus Mueller has a brief write up of a session entitled incredibly obvious software development secrets given at the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference by one of the Bare Bones Software guys. I can't argue with anything there, and luckily I already do most of it (except for the Bug Tracking thing - haven't had enough problem reports with the borkware stuff to warrant it :-)
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What The Font?, give it an url or an image that contains a font, and it'll tell you the fonts that match it.
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31 October 2003
After a greuling couple of weeks on-site in Cranberry (that hour, hour and a half drive gets old), I'm heading out for a long weekend away from technology. Automobiles and mechanical pencils for the crossword puzzle are as tech as I'm getting. /me waves to the #wplug crew.
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30 October 2003
From L.L.Beanpole, Starship Dimensions. Size comparison of science fiction stuff. Of course, some folks take things entirely too seriously.
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Rzolf found a blog even more random than himself: Free Variable, which is pretty cool. One posting is about a Carbon emacs for Mac OS X panther, and then some polemics on Lutheran theology.
However, if one has any doubts about the spiritual and theological health of the ELCA, one need only look at the asinine With One Voice hymnal,
I like the Setting V in the WOV (the music is nice), but I know I cringe when hyms come out of there, since they're usually the ones not in parts. (I find it hard to sing the melody - I much prefer the bass line) But I like his use of the term "ecumaniacal".
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the *real* recording from the first moon landing (language NSFW)
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29 October 2003
Technology sanitizes yet one more childhood experience. "Fun"kins, none of that messy natural stuff when it comes to pumpkin carving.
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Stolen from Flutterby, Drug Test, an amateur cyclist tries performance enhancing drugs (HGH, testosterone, EPO, sterioids), and documents the effects. Fascinating reading.
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realtime images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.
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From the land of jo2y, muppet terror alert level.
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Notes from Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan's keynote on the VT G5 cluster, describing some of the tech details.
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27 October 2003
WholeMovement, origami (with tape and bobby pins) using paper plates.
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From rzolf, Bizarre Japanese Commercial with Arnold (or an arnold look-alike). If anyone can explain it - you're a better person than I.
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25 October 2003
The latest fortune cookie over in the land of redtoade is A victim should learn from the experience and then put it behind them forever. The Transgressor should seek forgiveness in perpetuity as a teacher. That reminds of a thing from the Pursuit of Excellence course the spousal overunit and I took in Seattle before we got hitched. (My sister was working with the group, and didn't seem to be brainwashed, so I figured it was OK). One of the points they kept hammering home was "you are responsible for your current condition", not responsible for causing it (whether it be emotional trauma, disease, injury, economic situation), but responsible for how you react to it. You can hide in your shell and play the victim and lead a miserable existance, or you can do what you can with what you have in your power to either move on with your life, or come to terms with the problem so that you're not the victim. The old platitudes of "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" and "if life gives you lemons, make lemon chicken" are just restatements of this idea. (and as an aside, I got a lot out of the PoE course, and I recommend it)
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blah blah space storm blah blah cool picture blah blah.
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Oh Yeaaah!! brief tribute to the Kool-Aid Man.
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24 October 2003
From G-R/E.D, Bad Astronomy, pretty apropos, since his Dad (G-R's, not necessarily the guy who made the site) was a professional astronomer with NASA.
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Velcro is one of my favorite inventions of the 20th century. It was Billings that said "It was nature that invented velcro, some guy just ported it to plastic". Now there's nano-velcro that's as strong as krazy-glue.
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22 October 2003
Whoa. The SR-71 flight manual is online. If I ever die and come back as an airplane, I want to come back as an SR-71.
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From rzolf, outsourcing medical record transcription along with attempted blackmail. whee fun.
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21 October 2003
From Porruka, A tribute to Ray Harryhausen. Flashimation.
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From Denshi, One less sock: Those Darn Mormons, now fortified with domo-kun.
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Hey - any of you Mac guys out there know how to tell (with iToots) who is currently attached to my shared music, and what they're listening to?
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"Considered Harmful" essays considered harmful. "As a theoretical debate grows longer, the probability of a 'considered harmful' essay approaches one." The "goto considered harmful" one has been a thron in my side for a long time. I like to use goto to branch to clean-up code when using an API (like unix) that is based on return-value error checking. I find having straight-line code with a goto to a cleanup section a lot easier to follow and maintain than the contortions that people who were indoctrinated with the "goto is eeeeeevil! avoid at all costs" go through just to avoid the goto. One of the Mac 3.0 AOL Client guys replaced some of my goto-based code (which interfaced with the Stuffit decompression libraries) with a more complex exception-based one (and exceptions are just fancy gotos anyway). The original code worked. The "better" replacement code was broken.
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I had a birthday a couple of days ago, turning a ripe old 36. As is per usual, I spent a little time in quiet reflection of life, the universe, and everything; and have come to the conclusion that life totally rocks. Sure, I don't have a steady job, but I'm making enough mon-ay to make ends meet. I have a ton of friends online and offline whose company I really enjoy, a wonderful spousal overunit who laughs at me whom I can laugh at life with. My technical and musical skills are getting better all the time, and I'm still learning a lot of new stuff. I'm in good health and have a happy cat. What more could I want? (well, ok, outside of a totally tricked-out G5, but I can live without that)
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20 October 2003
Redtoade took me to task for the Bill McCellan link below, sending a link to Poynter Online's interview with Harry Stein, Slouching Toward Bias, or about the liberal bias in the media. I think the bias from the left is bias of omission, and the bias from the right is bias of distortion - it's a lot of fun listening to the Limbaugh program with the list of common logical fallacies. The American media is pretty much just reduced to what will sell papers or what will sell commercials or what will drive pledges during public radio membership drives, and as such I haven't paid them much attention in the last several years.
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17 October 2003
Found on Flutterby, What if it were Clinton and not Limbaugh addicted to painkillers. Reading it sounded just like the radio program. And, of course, dittoheads leap to their Messiah's defense.
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14 October 2003
Powers of 10 are really cool. The Megapenny Project shows (graphically, not with real pennies alas) various powers of tens of pennies.
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Found on BoingBoing, ReadRegular, a typeface designed to help dyslexic readers. The site itself is somewhat content free, but the background explanation is pretty neat.
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BlogBoy likes his Mac.
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13 October 2003
Since a good deal of my current general success is due to my association with the
Big Nerd Ranch folks, and especially
The Book, as well as
the MacEdition crew, I'm finding that
writing is becoming more and more important to my particular niche in the industry.
(and since I fundamentally don't like to write, I find this all very amusing.)
I've got a project percolating in my brain involving one or more books. It was with
interest when I saw Dan Lyke's comment "Then again, I was sure that there was value in thin computer books, and nobody seems to be selling many of them. " over at Flutterby. He gave me some
elaboration, along with another thread over there about Shovelware books and the technical book industry, which has a pointer to a nice article about the Thin Book movement
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The Desert Planet folks have a new video / song, "Lost Galaxians". As they describe it, "coin-operated disco beats and c-class sci-fi movie style". These are the folks that make new music with 80's video game sound styles.
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12 October 2003
From Run/ESD, Greek Rap, as if Homer prefered superlativel large buttocks, Verily.
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Robert C Martin talks about Agile methods, The Bottom Line, how one aspect of agile software development methods (like Extreme Programming) is the generation of data to help manage the project.
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10 October 2003
Mac. Old and New. It's kind of nice seeing intergenerational family photos like this.
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How much is inside <dr-evil>One Million Dollars</dr-evil>?
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For you folks with iTunes and time on your hands, Smart Play Lists has a bunch of Smart Play List configurations for different kinds of music browsing and playback.
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How to write bad documentation that looks good.
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9 October 2003
Silly Cone V predicted the demise of aD (of course, the demise of most of the other dot-coms too)
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Whoa. I guess someone really likes her new Mac.
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SomethingAwful has a fun Pear-based photoshop thing.
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8 October 2003
Yeah, Chronicles of George is a re-reun, but I always have problems finding it in my history since I don't have the word "havening" naywhere. There it is. I'm much happier now. Thankening you for havening a nice day.
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6 October 2003
This is something I wish I had when I spent a couple of months in London: Tube Map with WalkLines - showing the undergroudn stops that are within 500 meters of each other. Sometimes it's faster to hike a quarter mile than it is to wait 6 stops and change lines.
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RetroCrush has a gallery of retro Halloween costumes.
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5 October 2003
Whoa. Trogdor Cross-stitch. Now how to explain what this is and why it's funny to the Spousal Overunit. "you see, there's this cartoon of a mexican wrestler who reads email, and he came up with this dragon that burninates... uh, honey, where are you going?"
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Celebrity Doubters, an enumeration of agnostic / atheist celebrities. Based on Celebatheists.
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4 October 2003
AppleStudentDevelopers has reviewed the Core book.
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2 October 2003
redtoade found some cool stuff at ToyVault. Godzirra!, Rabbits with Big Pointy Teeth!, Jabber Jaw Wock, and of course (probalby a re-run), Plush Cthulhu.
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1 October 2003
From a memepool link, Andy Goldsworthy, artist, doing cool stuff with "found nature".
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Continuing the interlink incest with flutterby, Dan had a posting in one of the comments about PawSense, a program to detect
if your cat is walking on the keyboard. Luckily we haven't had that problem, except
when the cat wants to be in our lap along with the laptop, and I don't think PawSense
would work there. Usually the cat likes to sit between me and the keyboard.
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30 September 2003
From redtoade, Deteriorata. Be sure to have your speakers on. Music by Christopher Guest (of Spinal Tap and Best in Show fame)
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You've seen the SegWay and the MegWay, now make way for the
LegWay. Hot one-on-one Lego action (or something like that) Speaking of *way*, here's a guy that made his own.
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27 September 2003
You've probably seen the Chicken Littles posting about GoogleWatch, the "google is big brother, they do evil things like use cookies, so therefore They Must Be Stopped In Our Time". There's now Google-Watch Watch, with background on the individual behind GoogleWatch.
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HiMonkey's most perilous adventure yet! The title Monkey makes nice yummy bar cookies from leftover candies, belies the terrible peril as monkey braves hot graham cracker crumbs! A hot oven! Potential terrycloth mayhem involving stale Peeps!
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26 September 2003
Ya know, after seeing these safety charts from India, I think I may be one step closer to understanding Vinod. Well, maybe not. Although now I know why he keeps that giant cigar wrapper in the office.
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25 September 2003
Must eat brains! Zombie Infection Simulation (v2.3). Requires java.
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24 September 2003
Mama Mia, that's a spicy meatball! Why cooks spice up their foods, specifically about antibactierial properties of common spices.
For example, garlic, onion, allspice, and oregano were the best all-around microbe killers, killing almost everything.
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21 September 2003
HiMonkey draws a cartoon with the Bizarro guy.
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notes from the Virginia Tech presentation on the mega G5 cluster. There's also photos. Make your own cluster and get a t-shirt.
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RadioHead, as interpreted as juvenile visual art.
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20 September 2003
Another one for redtoade: The Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus.
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Cool, looks like a Cattlecar Battlestar Galactica video game.
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19 September 2003
The Big Lie comes full circle.
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Zephyrs had a rehearsal last night at Torin's place. His brother received for his birthday Lego Star Destroyer (official site) He had only started on the first couple of steps, with a big triangle sitting on a table. The kit has 3000 pieces, ends up being three feet long, and the instruction book is bound, and a couple hundred pages long. here one being assembled another set of folks making one, photos of the box (it's huge),
I hear there's a Death Star kit in the works that's to the same scale, 50 yards in diameter and has 247 million pieces. (seen in the blogopshere (*shudder*), so it must be true)
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Ahoy! Mateys, today be Talk like a Pirate Day! There's also a quiz for finding your Pirate Name. I be Black Jack Bonney (ok, so I be not one of the toughest pirates out there) Arrrrrr!
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18 September 2003
For redtoade, The Feathered Back Hair Site (that's feathered-back hair site). Highlighting wonderful hair styles from the 70s and 80s.
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From Talli's Pants, Angle-Grinder Man, London parking boot vigilante.
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17 September 2003
Planets. tastes great, less filling.
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So, you want to learn Japanese?.
I don't care how many anime tapes you've watched, how many Japanese girlfriends you've had, or books you've read, You don't know Japanese. Not only that, majoring in the godforsaken language is NOT fun or even remotely sensible. Iraqi war prisoners are often forced to major in Japanese. The term "Holocaust" comes from the Latin roots "Holi" and "Causm", meaning "to major in Japanese".
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Kaizer Szuhay has some notes on writing, which parallel much of my writing process. I still don't particularly like writing. It's not nearly as easy as talking programs to a computer.
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From AngryLuke in #macdev, home made HungryMan advert. Watching through this, I kept having the feeling that this was something done by Run/ESD, even though it wasn't.
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What's the worst (science) job you ever had?.
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Something Awful has some parodies of iPod ads.
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16 September 2003
Woo hoo! CARS is back on the air.
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14 September 2003
How to cook Ramen Noodles.
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12 September 2003
Hmmm... "fiscally conservative" government spending is up 20%, not counting entitlements and defense.
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nutters posted the link to the trailer for The Lost Skeleton of cadavra. I loved the old 50's monster movies that this seems to pay homage. Might be a movie I'll have to see in the theaters. I just hope all the Good Stuff wasn't all put into the trailer.
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Creation Science Fair. I wish I could get the paper for "Pokemon Proves Evolutionism is False".
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11 September 2003
From BlogBoy,
Great White Shark Breaching.
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For Crazy Erin, The eleven strangest Star Wars Action Figures.
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From he of hundreds of abandoned weblogs, your roommate plays the Indigo Girls, which reminds me of some folks from college. Like the Badgers badgers (mushroom mushroom), be sure to watch this one to the end.
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10 September 2003
I'm a big fan of the OmniGroup's OmniGraffle program. I guess it's like Visio for those stuck in windows land. It's a diagramming tool, and it does its job very very well. The UI is well designed and efficient. Today I was uber-brainded, and started playing one of the Infocom games I've never played before (Ballyhoo). After doing the standard "get a piece of paper to do the map", I figured, "hey. OmniGraffle can probably do a better job". If a corner of the map gets too crowded, I can move boxes around and the arrows will automagically track it. And so here are the fruits of my first hour or so of Ballyhoo. Wheeeee! (later update : here's one of Starcross in action)
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9 September 2003
Hubble has some neat pictures of Saturn.
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Like something out of rzolf's world: Man injured by flying ham. Gotta love western PA.
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8 September 2003
DougEDoug has a pointer to the page for Talk Like A Pirate Day, coming up September 19rd. Includes history of the day, phrase guide, and an automated translator service.
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Ken Mayer, of BitWrangler fame, is selling his boat, Wishful Thinking. If you're a boat-type person, check it out. It looks like Ken's taken excellent care of it over the years.
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7 September 2003
Crazy fads of recent history. Fads of the 80's of course hits close to home. Lesse... Rubik's cube (check), Boom boxes (check), video arcades (check), Wrestling (uh, no), Neon (yep, neon socks and shoelaces)... We even made our own "Baby on Board" signs in the high school journalism room. Except we did things like "Baby in Trunk", "Driver on Drugs", "Driver in Trunk" (our valedictorian Jeff Noble actually locked himself in the trunk. Hi Jeff if you found this from Google)
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5 September 2003
10-4 good buddy, here's a list of police codes and abbreviations.
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Buy my book, come to my class, save $500.
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More amphibimania. From Billings (TSFNKP), The Amfibibus.
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From DaveB, badgers badgers badgers badgers (mushroom mushroom) flashimation. Be sure to watch it to the end. As GR/E.D. says "The sophistication over the Hamster Dance is noticeable." Also from DaveB, Stupid Creatures: worse then s0ckm0nk3ys, and therefore better.
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the Something Awful Photoshop Phriday theme is Indiana Jones and the Crossovers of Doom. My favorite is this page.
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4 September 2003
close-ups of the new PowerMac G5 case. It's almost like computer-case porn. Don't miss the parody.
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Nerf gun modifications for fun and profit, but appying basic physics.
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3 September 2003
Mac OS X has some nifty stuff hidden down in the Quartz (brand) drawing layer. I'm working on the next version of the BorkStitch app for the Spousal OverUnit, and one of her books had a nice shading effect for their diagrams. So tried changing the flat mode into something a little more interesting. It was about 2 hours of work, going through some new and barely documented calls. Pretty much you write a 1:4 function, with domain 0.0 to 1.0,and range 0.0 to 1.0 for each of red, green, blue, and alpha (or CYMKA if you want) The system does the interpolaton and asks the function to map it to a color. This is just an axial fill, but it's got radial fills too.
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Given the amount of rain we've had in western PA this summer, this vehicle would be perfect. If only it were cheaper. (sigh). Upon seeing this, G-R/E.D pointed me to Amphicars. It's a car! it's a boat! Elvis needs boats!
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2 September 2003
From G-R/E.D, Victory Siren, the internet home of the Chrysler Air Raid Siren. I'd love to get one of these, hook it up to a pickemup truck, and go cruise the neighborhoods of those jerks who have the magnum subwoofers in their cars. There's also one-stop shopping for all your air raid siren needs.
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1 September 2003
Found on Flutterby, Mike May's Journal. After 43 years of blindness, he had his sight restored, and he's keeping a journal of his experiences.
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27 August 2003
From redtoade, crusher-of-hotel-managers:
% telnet infocom.elsewhere.org
login: zork
Password: <enter>
You can play Zork, and a number of other text adventures.
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From G.R/E-D, Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. I still havent' figured out what the top one is supposed to be.
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Buildings of Disaster: models of buildings involved in various, uh, disasters, includes Cernobyl, Waco, World Trade Crater, Watergate, and others.
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26 August 2003
JMS's new comic "Supreme Power" sold out its initial 100,000+ first printing, so they decided to put it online for everyone to read.
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25 August 2003
MSNBC has an analysis on the Columbia incident.
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24 August 2003
The latest MacEdition partingShot has a peek at the updated WinXP login screen.
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18 August 2003
Knowing-that vs knowing-how, along with content vs technique. I agree with the author that apprenticeship in the computer biz would be a great thing. That's fundamentally what I did, and I think that all new CS graduates entering the field (even those from Big Name Schools) should do a year or two of maintenance and support, mainly to find out how not to do things. That also avoids the problem of new MIT grads trying to re-write a legacy system in something trendy, and royally messing it up.
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17 August 2003
List of box office bombs. WaterWorld isn't on the list, since apparently it eventually broke even.
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16 August 2003
Smurf Name Generator. My full name comes out as "Son of Smurf" (maybe the start of a Messianic complex? This smurf is my body, this smurf is my blood; or maybe I'm just a mass smurferer.) My IRC nick ends up being "Radioactive Smurf". And I didn't know that DougEDoug was a Smurf Rapper.
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Pittsburgh's economy may be in the dumps, the police force is being cut, and we have a new convention center nobody uses, and two new stadiums even though the one(s) they tore down hasn't been paid for yet, but luckily we have
Major League Baseball's swiftest costumed food products.
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When the Great Blackout hit, I was driving home listening to the local talk-radio station (a guilty pleasure of mine). The first thing I thought about was "the satellite pictures would probably be pretty cool". And then the Radio Personalities started talking about terrorism, which just made me sigh. Billings pointed me to another page with some additional pictures.
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15 August 2003
From shank in #wplug, memcached (sounds like something western pennsylvanian), a distributed object cache thingie for webservers. It's the cache and carry behind Livejournal.
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Stolen from the land of DougEDoug, DiaperDevil, somewhat offensive baby-wear.
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Whoa. Lemmings, in JavaScript.
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13 August 2003
From Billings, Jesus is a Klingon?.
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11 August 2003
From G-R/E.D, DOKAKA. Be sure to check out Smells Like Teen Spirit. Like a cross between the Bobs, Fruvous, Warner Brothers, and a psychotic episode.
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10 August 2003
The C10K Problem, handling 10,000 simultaneous connections on a single machine. It's more of a notes-and-bookmark-page, but interesting reading nonetheless.
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8 August 2003
Korn meets KoRN.
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iDevGames gave the core book a very nice review.
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5 August 2003
Nice people yawn more. Guess that means I'm really nice, since I've now yawned 7 times during the reading of the article and posting this. Make that 8 times.
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3 August 2003
Yet more new Borkware, BorkStitch, an embroidery stitch notation tool. (this is different from the BorkStitch folks had seen over the last couple of years, which is a more general diagramming tool. It'll be Reborn under another name later.)
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The Acme Catalog, as used by Wiley E. Coyote.
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1 August 2003
Old-school mac folks might remember Glider and Glider PRO, fun little arcade games where you pilot a paper airplane around the house. John Calhoun, the creator, is giving them away for free now, since C&G has gone under.
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New Borkware, Stackinator, a cheesy little push-down stack for keeping track of where you are in the face of interruptions and detours. Handy for us old folks.
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From PeteJ, dissecting a BigTrak, (for those of you middle-aged enough to remember the BigTrak). Includes a link to a BigTrak simulator in Smalltalk.
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31 July 2003
Found on Flutterby, So you want to join the military, a view of the military recruitment process. Having maried a Marine, I loved this part We [the US Military] have done a lot of market research to determine what it is people such as yourself like and respond to. We've put out commercials specifically designed to appeal to you. Except for the Marines. They're natural experts at selling the sizzle. Hell, they are the sizzle. Even nowadays when I see a Marine in service dress I feel like joining. They've got it, they know it and their commercials rock. Come on, a lone man dressed as a knight defeating kings and queens on a chess board, then raising his sword to the heavens and in a flash of lightning dressed in that uniform doing a salute to an Order Sword while that music's in the background? You can't compete with that. It's gold.
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30 July 2003
For those who knew him at aD, Beep's getting hitched.
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29 July 2003
A new Rather Good animation (first in a couple of months) Hippo Girl. It's rather crude (in more way than one), but Rather Good fans should enjoy it.
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26 July 2003
Larry Moss, large-scale ballon sculptor, has a thing on the Fantastic Flying Octopus, the first twisted-latex scuplture to carry a pilot. (Chunks and that gross of boxes of trojans at aD doesn't count)
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Our Lord's Prayer, in ebonics.
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25 July 2003
Sweet! I'm listed in the thanks page for a piece of open-source software. Shank in #wplug did the mpd (Music Player Daemon)
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24 July 2003
Found on in a comment on Flutterby, In the Lecture Hall, a Geek Chorus (NY times, reg required), about IM backchannels during lectures. These were really popular at arsDigita during long, interminable phone meetings. It was handy for those of us out in remote offices to get questions asked locally, find out what the speaker was wearing, and generally mocking everything that could be mocked.
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19 July 2003
Latest bork-scribble over at MacEdition, Xs! They're Everywhere!. For maximal effect, say it in the Bob-voice from Bungie's Marathon game.
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Greetings from Omaha, Nebraska (visiting my folks). We took the train from Pittsburgh to Omaha (about 26 hours in the system). It wasn't a bad trip, outside of the Chicago->Omaha run being on the top floor of a double-decker car that wobbled back and forth. Not much luck reading or computing without getting green.
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16 July 2003
Frank Zappa's Musical Language, a musicological analysis of Frank Zappa's works. Includes brief transcription of a theme from one of my favories, Billy The Mountain. (sings "oooooh Billy had two big caves for eyes and a cliff for a jaw that would go up and down, and whenever it did he'd cough up some dust, and haaaaack up a boulder...")
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13 July 2003
SexyLosers (warning, offensive to just about everybody, but pretty funny. Not safe for work) has a preview of a new strip up, that's a parody of Space: 1999, one of my favorite 70's Sci-Fi shows. (needless to say, the parody strip can be pretty offensive, and it's not safe for work either - Chie is a recurring character, which is what makes this strip amusing) I was lucky enough to have had a couple of the Dinky Toys, in particular Eagle Transporter v2 and the albino freighter.
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sometimes technology is not the tool to use in all situations.
On behalf of the Omaha Police Department, I again want to express my sympathy for the loss of your son and regret for the message left on your answering machine
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12 July 2003
StellaStarlight is in food-service, and was going on about how cool Liddles are. It's kind a cool name.
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More burrito-mania, The Mystifying Psychic Burrito. Your choice of burrito ingredients shows you your personality. My wide-ranging selection of toppings demonstrates an admirable familiarity with Burrito culture. Plus, Today is an excellent day to have a burrito.
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Also on the JohnnyBurrito site is Ugly Money, defaced american currency that has graced his cash register.
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This week I've been down in Charlotte, NC, where the spousal overunit is going to a needlework retailer's convention. On friday I discovered a local treasure, Johnny Burrito, a great little burrito place. Johnny himself was at the cash register, guiding this newbie through the highly optimized burrito creation process. It looked like a great place to work - everyone behind the counter was smiling and having a fun time. The local press coverage is a lot of fun to read. Their obsession with cleanliness strikes me a little odd (repressed Howard Hughes syndrome?), but it's certainly an effective hook for getting press coverage. And needless to say, the place was spotless. The major bummer is that they're only open M-F, and we're leaving on Sunday. And it looks like this convention will be moving to Ohio somewhere next year. I'm sure I'll be disowned if I ask to come down here next year just for a burrito.
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Inexplicably found in a borkware server log was argon7, which looks to be a French web company. It has one of the most creatively annoying user interfaces I have seen in a long time. It totally escapes me why they decided that vibrating windows made for a good Interface. It also totally escapes me why they appeared in my server log. There are no links to my stuff on their page. The user agent is mozilla on windows, and up to now, only Safari has ever given me bad referrers.
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11 July 2003
From MaineCoon in #macdev, What happens if you freeze Han Solo in Legonite?.
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MormonStar Galactica.
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6 July 2003
Spotted on a Fark Forum, YouAreMyFriend.com. Stick someone's name in the hostfield of the request and they get a personalized uplifting message of hope, along with majestic music. Like for Monkeybot, or Chunks. Unfortunately, it mutates the capitalization, so DougEDoug, doesn't work quite right.
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From Enna, a Latin translation service, for a fee . They also do ancient greek. Give them some english, and get back a classy Latin phrase. Greeble Hoovern ni Borkum.
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5 July 2003
For the older folks out there: A catalog of playground equipment you probably won't see anymore, given our current "protect everyone from themselves" culture.
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2 July 2003
From L.L. Beanpole, Chris Crawford in Balance of Power, the classic Mac game from the Old Days.
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The Book made slashdot.
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1 July 2003
From rzolf, an ask tom that arguest against the hyper-flexible database architectures (objects, attributes, object_attributes, links) in terms of query performance.
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30 June 2003
It looks like The Almighty is flipping us off.
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Yay! I'm back from WWDC. Lots of cool new stuff coming in Panther. I still haven't recovered from the week (not being a terribly social person, I'm wiped out). In the mean time, Here's a stress test.
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25 June 2003
Greetings from SanFrancisco. Today is day two of Apple's WWDC. I've been playing booth bunny in the Big Nerd Ranch booth, pimping the class and The Book. I've run into a number of folks I know, and have been having a good time. I picked up a small far-war drive to hook up to the tiBook to try a test install of Panther. Hopefully it won't dork my primary drive.
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20 June 2003
Which Fark Cliche Are You?, me, I'm Cliche Kitty.
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19 June 2003
Human BeatBox dot com, for all of your human beat-box needs.
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Retrocrush has The worst super-hero costumes of all time.
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World's smallest guitar, could still be crushed by Mini-Me.
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18 June 2003
From G-R/E-D, Peltierbeer, keeping your beer cold, even in the direct sunlight. Using computer equipment.
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Behold the power of Mac OS X: building a floppy drive RAID in less than half an hour. Ok, so it's not necessarily useful power, but power nontheless.
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jdrake on #macdev pointed me to Take Our Word For It the weekly word-origin webzine. I figure DougEDoug would enjoy this one.
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GameSpy has 25 dumbest moments in gaming history.
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17 June 2003
From G-R/E-D, 30-second ice cream. Now, right off the bat you have to worry about a recipe found in Chemical and Engineering News
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Oh by the way, there's a new mac programming book with my name on it. There's some stuff about it over on borkware.
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16 June 2003
foobaz on #macdev pointed me to codewhore, a bunch of short essays on programming / software engineering.
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From Das ChunkenBlog, McYoon's alternate perspective on arsDigita.
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15 June 2003
Erupting Star Reverberates Through Space, with cool astronomy-like pictures.
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Wheee! another internet test (about brain mapping)! In this one, I ended up like:
Your Brain Usage Profile
Auditory : 66%
Visual : 33%
Left : 47%
Right : 52
With the analysis here, which is pretty accurate. I'm not surprised that auditory > visual, given my music habit and my lousy eyes.
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From feanor on #macdev, cute kitty/kitten picture.
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13 June 2003
From rzolf, the fine art of hotdogagami.
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SeanBaby's Superfriends page, deconstruction of the superfriends saturday-morning cartoon. Some of the banner ads are not safe for work.
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12 June 2003
OddTodd in the Matrix.
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11 June 2003
This looks kind of cool, StatCVS, grovels through your CVS repository and makes some cool charts and whatnot showing various development metrics.
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10 June 2003
Hacker Handle Generator, out with your old, n0n-l33T name, and get a nu 1.
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More MacEdition ranting, Eeek! XML!, using Apple's XML API. "wheee".
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An ebay auction, Rex! Awesome fun plush pal.
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6 June 2003
From a C++ discussion on #macdev, MK++: A High Performance, High Assurance Microkernel, talking about the use of OO technques at the OS kernel level.
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Disaffected Muslim, a weblog of a Modern Female muslim, and her perspective on the religion and associated culture's history as it relates to current times.
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5 June 2003
Over at IronyCentral (the Story of the Baby folks), A glimpse of life inside of a British boarding school.
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From G-R/E.D, Zombie Alert, are you prepared for the inevitable?
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4 June 2003
Let's build a compiler, a 15 part tutorial on building a compiler.
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3 June 2003
From DaveB, Walrus (I am the eggplant, koo-koo achoo), a really cool directed-graph visualization tool that browses graphs in 3-D using fish-eye distortion. The animations are pretty neat.
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2 June 2003
From DougEDoug, The website fulifier. Turn any website into a mid-90's html crapfest. Fer instance, BorkLog fulified, Flutterby, and photo.net. You can compose this with other similar services, like Borklog through the pornolizer through the fulifier.
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30 May 2003
Bear attacks sub (not a sandwich, the big US Navy variety)
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28 May 2003
PitchFork Media has an Interview with the Filthy Critic.
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25 May 2003
From rzolf, Achewood, yet another online comic, which I find better than most. It's slightly weird. I'm not sure what the underlying story line is - there is no huge page of character info (which actually is kind of nice - no suckiness like "he is a robot that dates a prostitute", thereby fully exhausting any comedic possibility in the premise), but it seems to be what teddy bears, squirrels, and house pets do in the off-hours while the hu-mans are away. There are some pretty twisted story lines in there, like prank-calling comic strip characters (including some phone sex with Cathy(tm)) and sabotaging a Subway sandwich shop through web forum postings.
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23 May 2003
Eine Kleine Borkmuzik. an mp3 we made this morning of the prayer of St. Francis (Make me a Channel (no 5) of your Peace), to give to a singer for a wedding we're doing next week. It actually came out pretty nice for a mono-recording we did. Me on bassoon, the Spousal Overunit on oboe (a little quiet since she was farther away from the microphone), and Torin on flute.
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Clean up after your dog sign that speaks to all involved parties.
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22 May 2003
From SeanY, Giant Microbes!, get the Little One in your life the gift of a cute fluffy, uh, rhinovirus.
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21 May 2003
Wouldn't the Matrix be better if it were about pizza? Something Awful has The Pizza Matrix, a bunch of photoshops and a mutation of the story so it's about, uh, pizza. There's also a 17 meg music video.
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20 May 2003
I wish I had this much free time. in-depth analysis over the size of the Death Star.
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mp3 of the moment: Faure's Pavane, from Bobby McFerrin's "Paper Music" album. The vocalizations add a really neat quality to the music. I really like this particular album (rediscovered it as I was feeding CDs into the iLamp for mp3 conversion). About half is Bobby McFerrin conducting familiar pieces, and the other half are vocalization-adaptions of other familiar pieces.
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On Retrocrush, The Trix Conspiracy: Bowlful of HATE. Why is it that breakfast cereal advertising has to be adversarial, frequently bordering on the sadistic?
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From rzolf, AIM cybering gone horribly wrong (probably not terribly safe for work, but no pictures are involved) I like the vegetables and the wizard ones. The last one I think I've seen before:
Wellhung: Hello, Sweetheart. What do you look like?
Sweetheart: I am wearing a red silk blouse, a miniskirt and high heels. I work out every day, I'm toned and perfect. My measurements are 36-24-36. What do you look like?
Wellhung: I'm 6'3" and about 280 pounds.I wear glasses and I have on a pair of blue sweat pants I just bought from Walmart.I'm also wearing a T-shirt with a few spots of barbecue sauce on it from dinner...it smells funny.
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19 May 2003
New site feature (actually, a re-implementation of a feature I sorta had working before). The book review section has been updated. It's a test-bed using the OpenACS content suppository repository.
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On Flutterby, Monsters Inc. == The Matrix?. I haven't seen the new Matrix yet, alas. Given the "annoying people raised in barns and lacking in any basic social graces" density of this area, we try to avoid any movie while it's too popuar, and hit a late-sunday night showing shortly before it leaves the theaters.
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The gig yesterday went down pretty well. With the debut of any group, and with any live perofrmance, we all made new and exciting errors we've never made before. I had a horrible bout of stage-fright that started saturday morning (which for me leads to the gag reflex kicking in, which is utter horror when you're a woodwind player with a piece of cane in your mouth), but I managed to beat that before the concert. Hopefully the recording came out OK and I can post some mp3's for the folks that couldn't make it.
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16 May 2003
Bruce Eckel on Strong Typing vs Strong Testing, why systems built with weakly-typed languages (Pythong in this case) don't necessarily collapse under their own weight due to a lack of the strong-typing found in places like C++ and Java. Bruce has a link to brief essay by Robert C. Martin, Are dynamic languages going to repalce static languages?. The discussion board for Robert's essay has some interesting commentary from both sides of the aisle. I know that in my day-to-day use of Tcl and Objective-C that I really enjoy the extra level of freedom those langauges give me, and I don't really miss the strict discipline of strict type-checking.
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15 May 2003
Now that iToots4 supports LAN audio streaming, I've been ripping more of my CD collection. I came across the classic CD from Old Skull, Get Out of School. I found review of the album online. I figured I'd help Spread The Joy by letting you all listen to Hot Dog Hell.
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14 May 2003
gig alert Our woodwind quintent, Zephyrs, will be having its premiere concert this sunday (May 18st) at 4:00 at Trinity Lutheran in Latrobe, PA. Here are directions. This should be a really great concert - the flute, horn, and clarinet are pro-caliber players, and Sharlotte & I aren't too shabby either.
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Posted by feanor on #macdev. Some really cute pictures from ratemykitten.com
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13 May 2003
From jo2y, Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek.
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Stories about Roy Oribison being wrapped in, uh, cling film.
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12 May 2003
Paintings by Brandon Bird, featuring pop icons as Mr. T, the Dukes of Hazard, and Abraham Licoln beating up George Washington, fight-club style. Retrocrush has an interview with the artist.
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From a comment thread on Fark, The Eye of Argon, one of the worst SF short stories. There's also an MST3K treatment of the story. From what I've been able to stomach, it's more of a fantasy / barbarian story than SF, but it's somewhat amusing.
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9 May 2003
From Feanor in #macdev, "in babelfish, translate 'ha ha ha ha' from engish -> korean, and back."
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Yay. More Borkscribble at MacEdition, sound-off, part 2. More on sound (er, audio) programming.
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6 May 2003
You've probably heard of that deck of cards that list the Wanted Members of that Evil Regime? I found an online copy.
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4 May 2003
Cool article on Babylon 5. I also picked up the season 2 DVDs yesterday. It's a very nice set. The two commentary tracks from JMS are worth the price of admission.
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1 May 2003
From Rzolf, Romulus, a Rivendell bike that's (somewhat) affordable.
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30 April 2003
From crazyAppleRumors, IDG Renames Macworld NY Again. Also, they cover Monday's music event, Apple Announces Online Muzak Business.
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The whole offensensitivity thing is really getting out of hand. Brainstorming considered offensive to epileptics. Soon all verbal discourse doubleplus goodspeak unoffend anyperson.
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DirkGomez in #openacs posted this gif of a web page to show how the Siemens ShareNet did inter-object linking. My mind is boggling over the logo in the corner. What is that? Two teletubbies going at it behind a giant waffle?
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Fark has had a photoshop contest involving an albino hedgehog. Some of the contets are just amazing, like the ice cream hedgehog, and the M.C. Escherhog, not to mention, the trouble with steroid abusing tribbles.
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Just when I thought there was nothing new under the internet sun, Chunks points me to Wrecked Exotics, pictures of expensive cars after accidents. Over 2200 photos, and a free newsletter. I'm surprised there's not a "members only" section with the really Hot pictures.
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28 April 2003
Two words not often spoken together: inflatable church.
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Boobah Zone. Probably one of the weirder flashimations I've seen. Very colorful and trippy.
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While out at dinner saturday night after a concert, I overheard someone at the table talking rather loudly. When I heard "oh yeah, just go to redhat society dot com, you'll find everything there." (wow, older wimmin folk talking about Linux in western pennsylvania). Alas, it's a different Red Hat.
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26 April 2003
Goldilocks Walks!. Personally, I think that little tramp's butt should be thrown in the slammer. Breaking and eating indeed.
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24 April 2003
While (I was) going to the grocery store, the local talk-radio guy (who wasn't going to the grocery store) had an interview with the guy that runs the Institute for Naming Children Humanely, (sounds like that could get confusing, "Paging Humanely Smith... Paging Humanely EDoug..."), Campaigning for parents to pick decent names that the poor child will be stuck with for the rest of their life. Luckily, my folks picked very easy first names for my sister and myself, since "Dalrymple" is enough baggage.
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23 April 2003
The Season 2 DVDs of B5 will be coming out soon. There's a preview of some stuff over at yahoo.
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22 April 2003
Now that we've got decend bandwidth now (alas high-latency, with a satellite connection), I've been enjoying internet radio, with the handy pre-sets that iToots has. DougEDoug pointed me to Beethoven radio, which plays a lot of good stuff, and the staff has a good sense of humor. They play a lot of movie soundtracks, which I find somewhat annoying. I also listen to Wall-To-Wall Classical, a live365 station. It has advertising, which usually isn't too bad. Recently they've had a lot of "precious little children's voices" ads, which drive me up the wall. My current favorite is Mostly Classical, which is mainly classical era (with some baroque and romantic thrown in).
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21 April 2003
Kuro5hin's Living with Schizoaffective Disorder, Part II and Part III
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20 April 2003
Leave no stone unturned, exploring the contradictions in the Gospels involving the resurrection.
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19 April 2003
In the great abortion debate, I've always said that the parents should have the option until the little one turns 18. Looks like the Sweetwater Post-Natal Abortion Clinic is setting up shop to make that Dream a Reality.
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17 April 2003
It's about time for Easter! There's nothing like celebrating the Death And Ressurection of (a|the) Lord And Savior Who Died So That We May be Saved From Sin And Have Life Eternal (Amen) like, uh, Marshmallow Peeps. There's lots of Peeps stuff out there, like PeepsShow, PeepResearch and (reruns), PeepHenge and Lord of the Peeps, Fellowship of the Peeps, and a (hell of a) lot more..
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16 April 2003
From chunks, Knight Rider 2004?. The mind boggles.
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15 April 2003
From billings, Japanese view of the Iraqi smackdown.
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Over on LiveJournal, I saw this user picture: Juggling Snowman. I watched him for almost an hour, and he never dropped a ball once! DougEDoug says the purple ball is a variation on the Standard Mills Mess. He also pointed me to the 504 pattern. There's like a whole notation for this stuff.
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14 April 2003
While waiting for The Book pdf to render (556 pages now), I decided to browse by
Kuro5hin, since I haven't been there in a long time. I found Living with Schizoaffective Disorder, a fascinating read into this mental illness. I then came across some of the author's other writings: GoingWare's Programming Tips, Resign with Dignity, Study Fundamentals, Not APIs, the SlashDot thread Overcoming Programmer's Block, and Market Yourself, tips for High-Tech Consultants.
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13 April 2003
interview with J. Michael Straczynski.
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12 April 2003
OddTodd had a April Fool's page, complete with a new (short) cartoon.
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NASA gives go-ahead to pluto mission.
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Greatest Secrets of the Cold War, some bizarro stuff that apparently actually happened. I wouldn't call them the greatest secrets, but they're fun.
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11 April 2003
Speaking of Yurts (yurt is still a fun word), Pacific Yurts
Pacific Yurts, the original designer and manufacturer of the modern lattice wall yurt, makes the highest quality yurts available.
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10 April 2003
We love the Iraqi Information Minister.
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9 April 2003
From PaulK, The Z Machine, mungus pulsed power fusion thingie. The picture is cool.
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7 April 2003
From Billings, BLOGS SAVE LIVES. Accordian Guy is saved from a psychobitch by readers of his blog.
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3 April 2003
From X-E, Baking Cakes Shaped Like ALF.
I always felt that spraying Pam into the cake pan was the best part of the whole process. It's sort of like using hair spray, but Pam smells a whole lot better and you won't die from the fumes when using a lot of i
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1 April 2003
From Billings, an eerily prohpetic Onion article, written in early 2001, about Our Long National Nightmare and Peace And Prosperity is Finally Behind Us.
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31 March 2003
SARS just media hype. I figure anything involving science or technology that the press harps on has to be misinformed hype to stir up the ignernt populace and sell more papers / get more donations during NPR station pledge week.
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30 March 2003
I can't find this in the archives (I may be missing something), but just in case I haven't, DJ Format video (quicktime format). Actually really good rap music sung by giant, uh, plushies. Just the existance of that turtle suit makes the world a better place.
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28 March 2003
From DougEDoug, Send Back Liberty, which is about, uh, sending back the statue of liberty. I like the proposed methods of sending it back. With the current state of hysteric francospisia (misofrancist? I think that's the term.) The repercussions of this trend, though, could be grave, especially for Franco-American [I love spaghettiOs) and for French kissing...)
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26 March 2003
From billings, yet another myers-briggs personality test. This time I ended up an ISTJ, with a breakdown of Introverted (I) 96% Extraverted (E) 4%;
Sensing (S) 82% Intuitive (N) 18%;
Thinking (T) 55% Feeling (F) 45%;
Judging (J) 82% Perceiving (P) 18%. FWIW.
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25 March 2003
HumanSky in #wplug is going to be living in a Yurt in Ohio over the summer. I find Yurt to be a wonderful word. It's fun to type: yurt yurt yurt. It's fun to say. "Yurt". There was a guy near here named Yurt who running for office, so there were a lot of Yurt signs by the road. Lars (not *the* Lars) has a Yurt, and also has pages on constructing the yurt he lives in. Yurt!
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Cremaster Cycle reveals, uh, stuff. One thing you gotta give Successful Modern Artists is that they have the Gratuitiously Weird thing down to a science.
Over the course of the Guggenheim game segment, Barney scuffles with a cheetah (his alter-ego), played by Aimee Mullins, a model who is a double amputee and a paralympic track star; wiggles through the legs of tap-dancing women wearing fluffy lamb ears
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XML is hard!. Let's go shopping! Actually, the discussion going on over at flutterby is more interesting than the article itself.
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24 March 2003
And they call California weird? New York dinners in the dark, dining with strangers in total darkness. Luckily the staff gets to wear nightvision goggles.
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From m0nk3y over on /sick, Leader of the Autobots found in the National Guard.
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new Odd Todd.
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Back from a 5 day trip through Northern Virginia. Sharz was playing a concert with the Loudoun Symphony, and I tagged along to get out of the house for awhile. Spent entirely too much time in front of CNN watching the video game Iraq coverage.
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18 March 2003
Mars has Dangerous Radiation Levels. Almost as interesting as the actual content of the article are the photographs of the astronomers, which are making (as G-R/E.D says, since his dad is a world-class astronomer) the Sagan "billyuns" gesture. Apparently they're all trained in that skill when they get their PhD.
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17 March 2003
Geeks on kuro5hin come out of the woodwork to talk about How to Make Bread.
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Who knew that England had so many Entrances to hell?
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16 March 2003
Happy Spring! Today's the first day since September or so that I've been able to go out on the side porch with the laptop and do my daily geeking out.
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15 March 2003
Here's one for redtoade and other old men born in the late 60's, retroCrush's Coolest Toys Ever.
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14 March 2003
Woop! It's Pi Day!
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13 March 2003
Found over in DougEDoug's world, The Tyranny of Email, on effective use of email, including 6 very common sense rules that many folks (particularly those new to the net) haven't learned yet. (Apparently this appeared on slashdot too, which I tend to stay away from.)
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Water flows on Mars?.
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From Enna, Morbid Tendencies: Art to Buy. Some of the mutant stuffed animals are amusing. Some items will be disturbing for small children. (ok, and some not so small children)
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12 March 2003
Alas, The Story About The Baby has ended, with updates only coming sporadically. And it's now ben upgraded to The Story About the Toddler
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Found over at Lars' place, a small email posting from the cocoon-devel list about bad code + good ideas makes the best open source communities.
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11 March 2003
Enna sent in this one, Your weather forecast, in Latin.
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10 March 2003
eXtreME CroSs-StItCH!!
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Scientists discover new element, Governmentium. The part about the subatomic particles reminds a lot of H.L.E. Billings' hostnames (mueon, meson, crouton...)
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The periodic table of Haiku.
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Yay, more borkscribbles at MacEdition. (a few) Productivity Tips for the Unix User.
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8 March 2003
another from Evand, Flash Flash Revolution, hand/eye/ear coordination game. Try to match flying arrows as you rock to the beat. We are getting down and getting funky!
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Woop! New Kitten Video! Gay Bar.
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From Evand, The Google Dance, watch how the google index propagates across their datacenters.
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7 March 2003
From the s0ckm0nk3y, it's all about the monkey, monkey toys, animals, etc. (inflatable monkeys for only 75 cents!) Some folks are aware of my money/monkey aphasia, which makes the page even more apropos. Also from m0nk3y, Suburban Trunk Monkey (mpeg)
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Every time I stumble across a link to the eXtreme Programming wiki, I end up losing hours in there. This time the gateway drug came from davb, with Technical Debt.
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I don't recall having posted this before (and I'm too lazy to check the whole damn thing). While talking with GR-E.D, I pointed him to Vendetta, A Christmas Story. It's pretty violent, but pretty funny too. Amazing what can be done for under $1000 and oodles of spare time.
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6 March 2003
Linux Productivity Magazine has a nice Intro to PostgreSQL.
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It's been awhile since I've checked in on Troubleshooing Professional Magazine. This quarter (he's gone to a quarterly schedule for TPM, and added a Linux Productivity Magazine) is about
Toolsmanship and effective use of tools.
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5 March 2003
Virtual speak and spell.
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4 March 2003
GridLock, an entirely too addictive web puzzle game thing.
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3 March 2003
From davb, Byte 2 Note, turn any file into MIDI music.
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2 March 2003
Found in the jo2y, a set of Signs of the modern day Duck-and-Cover. This one is one of my favorites:
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1 March 2003
From rzolf, Rap Video involving large furry animals breakdancing
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Originally spotted in /sick, Celebrities Eating. Pictures are safe for work, but it's very odd. As rzolf so eloquently put it, "whoah. that is a weird site."
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From G.R. E-D, 500 mile email.
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28 February 2003
In another fine example of blog incest, I saw over at Chunks' place, Lego castle. All I can say is, wow.
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27 February 2003
This saturday EvanD and I are doing a talk on emacs at WPLUG, my favorie drug of choice these days (not sure if that refers to wplug or emacs). I've been finding the Emacs wiki to be a hugely wonderful resource. In the last couple of days I've learned more emacs tricks and "whoa. it can do that?" than ever before. Like M-x dunnet for adventure game goodness, M-x column-number-mode to show the column number in the mode line, C-U 0 C-L to move the line the cursor is on to the top of the screen (rather than centering like just a plain C-L), and C-U C-_ to undo only within a particular region, rather than across the whole buffer.
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I haven't seen these elsewhere, so I figured I'd post 'em and start filing my patents.
Domo-kun emoticon: \Ö/, and of course, the fearsome |-Ö-| Domo-kun TIE fighter.
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Cool! Christo does NYC. I might need to go to NYC in 2005 to see it.
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From fark, NASA engineer email before Columbia's reentry.
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:'-(, Mr. Rogers passes away. Back when I used to watch the Arsenio Hall show (oh the shame), I remember the wildest audience reaction when a guest came on was when Mr. Rogers showed up.
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26 February 2003
Found on Fark, PornOrchestra, that is doing live orchestral accompaniment to classic hardcore movies
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mp3 of the moment, The Chicken Dance (techno remix)
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Lego Tarot!
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indrectly from Billings, Is Boredom bad?. Billings asks "Does being bored mean you're boring, or is it just the world around you?" Maybe neither. I know folks who are bored pretty often, but they themselves are very interesting people. I know I (and the Spousal Overunit) are rarely, if ever, bored. We just have too much stuff on our plate to do, and the occasional down time of just sitting in a chair with a cat is time to enjoyed. We also don't have our TV hooked up to the outside world, so we don't have the constant stimulation of television and television commercials, which also has the nice side effect of not being barraged with advertisements aimed at making us dissatisfied with our current level of consumer consumption.
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25 February 2003
Stolen from Flutterby, the story of Things that go Blimp in the Night.
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I guess I must be (slightly?) neurotic because I get songs stuck in my head all the time. that's the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it (uh-huh, uh-huh).
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21 February 2003
From chunks over at /sick, Earth Erotica. Probably NSFW, but then you could say "well, they're just geological formations". I figure the Flutterby crew would enjoy them.
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20 February 2003
Another good one from Billings, Interview with Robert Burrows, author of the Great American Parade, an Inquiry into the Values of modern-day times.
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19 February 2003
From Billings, Lords of the Rhymes, Hobbit Rappers. Be sure to check out the movie. Contains coarse langauge, so use headphones at work.
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17 February 2003
The Simpsons turns 300. The golden era began when the writers turned to Homer, and Homer, Thompson says, "is one of the great comic creations. ... He's complex in his own lack of complexity."
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14 February 2003
Shamlessl stolen from Flutterby, A Soldier's Viewpoint on Surviving Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Attacks: in short, Don't Panic.
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Woo hoo! The Orange Alert is a fake. I suspect a conspiracy with the duct tape lobby.
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The Something Awful Photoshop Phriday this week was Video Game Boxes. I think my favorite was Mortal Wombat.
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From CARS, there is a new Mac Shareware Review Site, PerversionTracker. I just hope my stuff doesn't end up there. At least I avoid RealBasic.
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13 February 2003
Odd Todd is publishing a book
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12 February 2003
GoogleSynth. Randomly picks two images from google, then tries to build one image out of the other, sometimes with really interesting results. I found this one looking through the Borkware referrer logs. I haven't figure out yet how someone got to BorkPad from that page.
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I fixed some vhosting problems I was having. The #openacs crew badgered me to write them up, so here are my notes on AOLserver Virtual Hosting with TCP.
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Chris Crawford, designer of pretty innovative and strange games, took part in a NASA mission to study the Leonids in 1999.
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11 February 2003
A new germ theory, on the evolution of the microbes that cause disease. And are some of our leading non-pathogen illneses actually caused by microbes?
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How do I make games, a path to game development.
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Found on RetroCrush, The most annoying movie characters of all time (Volume I)
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From rzolf, KidRobot, a lot of really weird action-figure kinds of things.
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10 February 2003
Even Sun isn't fond of Java.
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After asking about linear algebra books on #opeancs, davb pointed out The Assayer. Looks like an index of a bunch of free online books, including linear algebra.
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From grand-rapper E.D., Virtual Stapler. I could play all day with something like this. And BlueKanary probably can't destroy it either.
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Woop. Another MacEdition article. Grumpy code? gdb it!, an intro to gdb concepts. Usually my stuff there gets published around the 10th of the month. The OpenACS article took longer than expected in the copy editing phase and so showed up later than usual.
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7 February 2003
Never underestimate the power of Cheetos.
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Wheee! More ranting over at MacEdition: OpenACS and you, (or, "Mental Hygiene for the internet generation").
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4 February 2003
This link is from Chunks
Haiku Blog is the new thing
Please go forth and click
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redtoade was on a nostalgia kick today, pointing me to lots of stuff over at YesterdayLand, like classic toys (cattlecar galactica, Gnip Gnop, and Milky, the Marvelous Milking Cow (with Milk)) and TV shows (Ark II, Beany and Cecil, and Zoom)
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The latest in the Alltel saga. Our ISDN "service" is still flaky. Yesterday we got our second call from the DSL group asking if our problems were resolved, (and twice we said "We don't have DSL. We have ISDN. It's still sucking"). The satellite installer came today and is currently setting things up. While he was getting things installed, two Alltel vans showed up. Apparently we've had DSL available in the area since *May*, but nobody we've called in the intervening months has said it's available. So we're really pissed at having paid the ISDN extortion fee (2-3 times the DSL rate) for really lousy "service". Since we've already shelled out for the satellite stuff, we'll most likely keep that for the long term.
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3 February 2003
From davb, Videos of the Abelson / Sussman Lectures given at HP in the mid 80s. An MIT class distilled down to a bunch of gigs of video. Unfortunately with my current connection, it's a 93 hour download for the mpeg, and about 28 for the divx versions.
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1 February 2003
Whoa. We lost another shuttle. The space shuttle was "my" space era. I was too young really for the moon shots, while the shuttle was being built when I was in elementary and junior high. I thought the Enterprise prototype glider was really cool. I was a senior in high school when the Challenger blew. All of us were in shock. Mrs. Thomas the bilogy teacher came and got us from the journalism room to watch the news coverage since she knew we were space geeks. Today I was driving to a LUG meeting when it came over the radio. I'm just waiting for some Islamic group to claim responsibility. That would really freak everyone out.
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31 January 2003
From rbm: Why CNN Sucks (I could have told you it's an entertainment channel, not anything actually Useful). jcdldn pointed another page of his, I am better than your kids, where he deconstructs the poignant existential basis underlying universal juvenile expressions of artistic endeavor.
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From rzolf, this week's Frightening Link: cool-2b-real, a Beef Advocacy site aimed at teenage girls. Only thing I could really think of is the use of hormone injections in beef leading to increated bustline.
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29 January 2003
Long hours at the computer considered harmful.
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DougEDoug pointed out that Chunks had Jeezit, which auto-sacntifies web sites (and includes a nifty soundtrack). For instance, BorkLog. There's also the Pornolizer, which turns a site into a porn site (at least textually). For instance, BorkLog. (not safe for work) True fun happens when you combine them. A lot of it is random, but sometimes Truth Emerges:
[10:54] markd2 alltel? Nobody knows but Jesus.
[10:54] monkeybot alltel art a bunch of fucks
I hath Satan's ISDN serivce currently because the dial-unto
(I especially like the 'dial-unto')
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28 January 2003
latest in the saga to have Alltel fix the problems with our ISDN: Got a call today from someone in their DSL support department. She'd never heard of ISDN before. We both wondered how this trouble ticket (open since December, problems since September) got to her.
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Yes! They're still around! The Flat Earth Society.
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Another from rzolf: monowheels and diwheels, vehicles that are single (or double) wheels. I think the Flutterby crew should make one of these for the next Burning Man. DougEDoug pointed me to Riding The Ultimate Wheel, which is also a monowheel, just not motorized. And smaller.
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From Rzolf (yeah, he's still alive), a bunch of articles from the folk(s) at Dexterity Software on gaming, the shareware/software industry, personal motivation, and other stuff.
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27 January 2003
OK, OK. Enough folks have bugged me about an RSS/XML/TLA feed for borklog. I guess they don't like my sublime page layout. Here is a first-crack hack at an XML feed. http://badgertronics.com/blog/blog-xml. Lemme know if it works / doesn't work for you, since I don't actually use XML/RSS/TLA feeds.
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I forget who originally pointed me to these small Interviews with Martin Fowler. (if you go to the 6th installment, you'll find links to the previous editions. The pageflow of the site is pretty awful). Martin's pretty famous for is work in the eXtreme Programming world (surge!!), as well as his Refactoring book. I usually find what he says makes sense, and is interesting too.
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On Saturday we took the yoof group down to the Pittsburgh Omnimax theater to watch Attack of the Clowns Clones before it left town. It was an odd experience. Back in the 90s I saw Hunt For Red October at the iMax in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and that was a great time. The imax screen is mainly just wide. Omnimax (from what I could tell, this being my first time in one) is both wide and tall projected on the inside of a large dome, which gives quite a bit of distortion around the edges. The movie was watchable most of the time (some scenes induced vertigo due to the projection distortion), and there were numerous times that action was happening on the edges of the screen but the middle was pretty blank. On the plus side, Natalie Portman scales pretty well, having a 30 foot tall head, and the CGI was surprisingly good blown up to the extreme the it was. Yoda always of course awesome was he.
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25 January 2003
A posting that is a voice of reason in the whole HTTP TRACE vulnerability hooplah.
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22 January 2003
One of our hanakwaanzamas gifts to ourselves was a DVD player. I always said that I'd get a DVD player when there was compelling content (specifically DVDs of the Babylon 5 episodes). Season I of B5 has come out, so we got the player (especially since our 13 year old VCR has eaten a couple of tapes. As a birthday present to the spousal overunit, I got her seasons 4 and 5 of Star Trek/TNG. After watching some of the episodes, I remembered the Tim Lynch reviews of the episodes. I didn't always agree with them, but I found them informative and entertaining. It looks like they've been updated and put on the web, as witnessed in the "new!" banner:NEW If you have a frames capable browser (e.g. Netscape 2.0 and above) you can try the new framed version of this section. But beware: this is very much under construction!
And unfortunately the reviews have a brick-pattern background image that renders them unreadable, but if your browser lets you turn that off, the reviews are fun reading.
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While surfing around Slashdot (I am soooo brain-dead right now), I came across this comment describing a vignette of my youth. Except I programmed the TRS-80s to say "I SUCK! I SUCK!" over and over again.
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21 January 2003
Folks who hang around me know I gripe about my ISP, Alltel. All the infobots around me know alltel too:
[10:54] markd2 alltel?
[10:54] monkeybot alltel are a bunch of wankers
I have their ISDN serivce currently because the dial-up services is really bad, due to the local infrastructure being old. (2-3 disconnects on a good day, dozens of disconnects a day if it rains hard). We're 1000 feet too far for DSL, and the cable modem folks just laugh at us when we call up. So ISDN is the next best thing. Two years ago they ran some lines and got us hooked up. Aside from being a king's ranson every month, it's been a usable service. In September it started flaking out. After months of complaints (I have a 50Kemail paper trail) things have finally come to a head.
The problem is that when we call the local (Apollo, PA) ISDN dial up number, sometimes it chooses not to pass packets. Usually this happens at 3 in the morning when the "help" desk is closed. Other times it just decides to drop half of the connection, forcing a re-dial and setting up all my net sessions again. The next closest number is in Delmont, PA, and is very reliable, and is faster than the Apollo number.
We had some stuff to do in December that had to get done, so we used the Delmont number for a week. Turns out that is worth about $450 in long distance. After calling and complaining to the billing office (and getting the Delmont charges taken off the bill), they're finally starting to look at the problem. The local folks were kind of surprised having never head of the problem. I guess the 4-5 months of complaining to the support folks never made it anywhere. I'm not terribly surprised that it takes a big(ish) monetary impact before any kind of decent customer service happens.
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20 January 2003
From haverkamp, an ex aDer over at AmIHot. I guess the VXML thing didn't take off.
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From G-R/E.D, a Mac that looks like it came out of Brazil
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19 January 2003
From jo2y, Demotivators T-Shirt. I like the disclaimer.
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18 January 2003
New Blode! Attack of the Uber-Pea.
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We're back! What a couple of weeks it has been. For the folk out there that was wondering what happened, here's the timeline:
- I had Jury Duty Jan 6th through the 9th, trying an accident-damages due to a guy running into an 18 wheeler that was straddling the road. He was pretty messed up, but didn't do rehab. We awarded some damages (since liability had already been determined before our trial started), but I think we did Good Justice since both side's attourneys grimaced at the verdict reading. Four days of tedious medical testimony.
- on Tuesday the 7th, WorldCom decided to pull the plug on Digital Mission, where I had my computer colocated. DM had no warning, and my first inkling of problems was not being able to check my email tuesday night. I came to discover that the shut off was sudden and permanent, and I needed a new place to set up shop (which was difficult to do since I was still in the trial during the day.
- The fine folks at Acorn Hosting let us move in on very short notice. Obligations wednesday and thursday night precluded doing much site restoration, outside of slurping over aolserver and figuring out how to get the virtual hosting working so I can put my 5 sites behind one IP, rather than the luxury of several IPs at Digital Mission.
- After delivering the verdict on thursday, I came home (skipping my usual thursday night rehearsal 80 miles away), heated up dinner, and got a call from Sharlotte's aunt saying that Gramma (95 years old) had fallen and couldn't get up. So I headed over there (a couple miles away) to help out. I finally got home from the ER around 1:30 or 2 in the morning.
- and then after that was the slow process of getting sites back up and running. I had a backup from july time frame. I used the time at a WPLUG installfest to get my qmail config back up and running. After that was getting other sites working (specifically the Loudoun Symphony), since there are actual people who use those sites to do Real Stuff. This involved several migrations, AOLserver 2.3.3 -> a more recent version, Oracle -> postgrese. It's not quite finished, but it's at least working
- Oh, in the middle of all of this, my ISP (Alltel) was totally flaking out, somtimes giving me a half dozen disconnects in the course of an hour. That makes things dreadfully difficult to accomplish. I'm also paying a king's ransom for ISDN "service" (since we're too far for DSL, and the cable folks just laugh at us).
- Due to a comedy of errors, I wasn't able to get my physical machine until wednesday evening (1 week, 1 day since the plug got pulled) to get the most recent data. I borrowed a friend's DSL to upload a bunch of stuff the last couple of days, which let me get Borkware and badgertronics back up and running.
- There's still a lot of mop-up left to do (virtual machine configs, figuring out backup strategy, but things should work (all of borkware, badgerblog, sick, and the other random things around here)
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5 January 2003
Yesterday we went to see the Two Towers. I think I'm finally going to stop seeing movies out in public. No matter where we go, some born-in-a-barn cretin seems to show up and sit right next to us. This time it was a pistachio eater scattering shells all across the floor, while simultaneously gabbing with the person next to him. Lukcily most of the movie was loud enough to cover up most of the running commentary. I guess common courtesy really is dead.
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3 January 2003
Woo hoo! A borkware product that doesn't suck! BorkPad, a clone faithful reproduction of the classic Mac OS 9 NotePad utility. It's different from all the other billions of note pad utilities out there in that it doesn't throw the Mac OS X kitchen sink in there.
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From Enna, A Rube Goldberg new year greeting.
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1 January 2003
Hippo Newt's Ears everybody. Over the last couple of days I've upgraded badgertronics to be on the latest OpenACS. Lemme know if you notice anything broken.
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30 December 2002
How to write like a (net) wanker. You too can now fit into the IRC and Slashdot communities.
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26 December 2002
Top 10 Space Mysteries for 2003. The copy-editing is pretty cringe worthy (like "Have you ever had one of those dreams where you try to run from a monster and you're legs go 'round and 'round") ugh. Some of the New Mysteries are kind of cool.
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The Filthy Critic reviews The Two Towers. if you're offended by coarse langauge, avoid it. Otherwise it's one of his better reviews.
Frodo the Hobbit (played by Elijah Wood still looking like a deer in the headlights) has the ring. He and Samweiss the Hobbit (chubby little Sean Astin) are moving toward the Mountain of Fire with the help of Gollum (played by The Weekly World News's Batboy)
Mortensen and Tyler's relationship is so thinly sketched in the first movie, that when they speak here it has the emotional impact of a dumpster dive.
Plus, it's sort of laughable when characters on screen can be easily identified as good or evil purely based on the greasiness of their hair, and yet the people in the movie can't tell. "What! You mean that guy dressed all in black with the ashen skin and greasy hair was a bad guy? Damn!"
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20 December 2002
No, really. Pittsburgh doesn't suck.
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17 December 2002
God's way of saying dude, you need a new car. A victim of the Peekskill Meteorite.
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From Chunks (yeah he's still alive), New Odd Todd Holiday Greeting. There's also new wedding pictures at ratbox, including a kid with some of the balloon haul, and Chunks in his new Paddington Bear outfit.
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16 December 2002
From monkeyass on #wplug, The College Theme Paper: He vs. She, although to me it reads more like a high school paper. Probably isn't even real, but I enjoyed it.
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From G-R/E-D, Turkish Cinema remakes Star Trek. As E-D says, "I must have it". Also affected is The Wizard of OzIn Turkey, a plot twist is an army of charging cavemen getting exploded by a magic cannon conjured up by midgets.
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Seen on SourceForge, Risk Extreme! I can't tell if this is a joke or not.
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12 December 2002
Miracle on 34rd Street? Will FedEx find Santa?
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11 December 2002
I saw a pointer to a quiz, Which Sesame Street Muppet's Dark Secret Are You?. The test is pretty lame, but the different kinds of results are amusing (doesn't seem to be a way to link directly to them. oh well). The Elmo one isn't quite safe for work.
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Inside the world of the lost-and-found department.
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From Denshi, Compo, a music composition langauge.
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I forget if it was jo2y or billings that brought this up, but Jump the Shark, when TV shows cross that line of stupidity from which there is no recovery. The A-Team jumped the shark in the fifth season when they got the disco music soundtrack.
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10 December 2002
Yee-haw! Another MacEdition publication. Memory Corruption and Malloc Tools, a brief (< 1%) excerpt from the Big Nerd Ranch course materials.
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Found by mer in #wplug, Rate My Professors, rate your college prof and see what other victims students think of them.
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From MonkeyAss, Open Source Development HOW-To, includes tips on the best use of sourceForge.
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9 December 2002
From Billings, What if Christmas were a Jewish Holiday?. My favorite part is the Hagada for Xmas at the end.
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7 December 2002
For the B5 fans out there, JMS News, net postings from B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. A total of 16698 messages (woof)
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6 December 2002
Old Lutheran, The Center for Lutheran Pride! But not too proud. It's got to be real since they mention jell-o.
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Wow. Fat-free potato chips from the heavens? Well, not really, but it is a one-time strong signal from space.
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Europe plans building 100 meter telescope. Given that the current state of the art are 8 and 10 meter telescopes, this one should be a doozy.
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Build your own sandwich, british style.
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4 December 2002
From DougEDoug, Sprinklers go off during a Philadelphia Orchestra rehearsal, ruining a piano :-(. Amusingly enough, they were rehearsing the Rite of Spring. Makes me wonder if we get trampled by a herd of deer when the Washington Symphonic Orchestra works on Afternoon of a Fawn Faun.
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2 December 2002
I wish I had this much spare time. one (silly) putty Ring to Rule Them All.
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These things are getting rarer and rarer. Thanks to DougEDoug for finding a Swedish Chef translation service. (includes other dialects as ell)
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30 November 2002
from fark, Enterprise-D made out of lego.
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28 November 2002
From the s0ckm0nk3y (curiously enough), a sighting of Hi Monkey in the New York Times. (monkey even made the print edition)
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Driving home the other night I was scanning through the local radio stations and came across this odd little song about blackbirds, where the singer sounded just Edie Brickell (blast from the past for those children of the 80's knocking around). After much fruitless googling and searching the web, I finally found a gnutella client, and discovered the artist is actually Erin McKeown (warning, flash-heavy site). Time to go track down an album.
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27 November 2002
A FAQ of all things Dr Pepper, found after some discussion in #wplug on finding caffiene free Dr. Pepper. Looks like West Virginia still has a bottler, so I might be able to find some next time I'm down there for a trombone lesson.
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jwz has a great story about fixing a giant underground power line.
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22 November 2002
While talking about outliners in #openac, jcdldn pointed me to this Review of More, the outliner I still use (even though it hasn't been updated since 1991. It's a 68K mac program that works in classic on Mac OS/X. I developed my chunk of the Core OS X course with it, and I have yet to find its equal.
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20 November 2002
From Billings-san, a new Switch ad, this time, from Anakin Skywalker. Yub yub.
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19 November 2002
The #wplug folks pointed me to StrongBad's techno email. the mp3 you can download at the end of the cartoon is truly awesome. I've got it on auto-repeat now.
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I can't beleive this slashdot comment that speaks to a fundamental universal truth got moderated down. (it's a #wplug collaboration)
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Speaking of Duck and Cover, DougEDoug found animations of Bert the Turtle.
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18 November 2002
From the Grand Rapper E-D, duck and cover, a brief audio snippet on how to survive a nuclear bomb.
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Yay! Finally back from the Nerd ranch Core-OS X and Unix class. We ended up having 7 students (out of a maximum of 8 or so), so it was really well attended. All the guys there were top-notch programmers. The first lecture was pretty frightning for me (being the first Real Class in front of Real Customers), but eventually I got into a good rhythm and ceased being the deer in the headlights. I did M-W, Aaron did Thursday, and we split friday. We're now in the process of fixing typos in the materials (530 pages!) that folks found, and doing some reorganization. The next date is tentatively scheduled for February.
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13 November 2002
From the Big Nerd himself, a pointer to Generalizing Overloading for C++ 2000, includes the overloading of whitespace. Be sure to note the publication date.
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12 November 2002
From Enna, PeepHenge, as well as Lord of the Peeps, Fellowship of the Peeps.
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11 November 2002
Greetings from the Big Nerd Ranch. Turns out I've got 7 (!) students whose minds I can warp this week. The lecturing / teaching thing is exhausting, but nearly as difficult as I was expecting it to be. The net connection is a bit slow here (being shared by all of us over a dial-up line), so random surfing is a bit on the slow side.
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7 November 2002
We're heading southward to Ashville NC for my Big Nerd Ranch class, stating on Sunday. So far 6 have signed up. It should be fun.
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Chinese food is poisonous to me, but this thing on reading chinese menus is pretty interesting.
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6 November 2002
I like weddings, affirmations of happiness in this cold, cruel universe. Especially if they're local. Free food, and I get to wear my tux without having a piece of plumbing attached to my face. Memempool had a reference to Etiquette Hell, including a bunch of stories of weddings gone horribly, horribly wrong.
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5 November 2002
From PeteJ, From the Daily Show, a Schoolhouse Rock style song about mid-term elections. (requires Real player)
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4 November 2002
IMDB for cartoons!
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31 October 2002
cool picture of Mt. Etna, from space.
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jwz's livejournal had a pointer to a pretty cool Build Your Own Face thingie.
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Whoa. jwz contemplating switching to OS X.
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30 October 2002
a National Post article on how The American Media seems to be ignoring the radical muslim connection regarding the beltway sniper dude(s).
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29 October 2002
Evil Ronald McDonald and the fate of poor little McNugents
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28 October 2002
We just got back from spending the end of last week down in Leesburg for a Loudoun Symphony concert. They caught the Sniper the day after we arrived. To fuel the trip we splurged on a bag of Skittles (it's amazing how far one of those bags goes. Maybe it's the "oh my god what have I just eaten" effect. Anyway, They've replaced the tasty lime skittles(tm) with that bizarro candy-green-apple flavor. Do me a favor, go to The skittles.com feedback page and let them know (politely) that apple bad, lime good. Thank you, and have a nice day.
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22 October 2002
OddTodd Halloween Special.
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20 October 2002
Flash-based optical illusions.
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17 October 2002
Billings has an analysis of the Toilet Lid Protocol.
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15 October 2002
New Wallace and Gromit. Cheese! More Cheese!
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14 October 2002
I've got to finish my book course notes for the Nerd Ranch Core OS X and Unix Programming. By Monday. Lotta work to do, so updates here will be even spottier than usual. Sorry. In the meantime, I hope the parable below keeps you amused.
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Found on Flutterby, The parable of the languages. Geek humor.
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The Prior Art-O-Matic. It's especially fun to feed in names. Like monkeybot or borklog.
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11 October 2002
One year ago today I was given the axe from arsDigita. I lingered on for two more months to discharge a client contract they had. A couple of months later the company was folded and sold to the losers at RedHat so that the VC could bury the company and incur a loss on the balance sheets. But that's long gone. Aside from the lack of a steady income, the last year has been pretty neat. I've witnessed the rise of Borkware, written some stuff for MacEdition, attended a class at the BigNerdRanch, and now I'm building a course for them. I'm pretty happy I've been able to maintain friendships with folks from aD and aD clients, sometimes even getting invited to weddings. Do I miss the income? Yes. Do I miss the people from aD? Some. Would I go back to a freaky dot-com like that again? No.
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RedToade's grandpappy is a Cowboy Poet. He also does high speed rail transportation.
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8 October 2002
Celebriducks, taking your favorite celebrities and turning them into, uh, rubber ducks. (where do people come up with this stuff?) What's kinda cool is that there are info blurbs on the pre-ducked people, including this nice biography of Mr. T.
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The pinnacle of modern music, The Helicopter String Quartet.
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From Grand_Rapper_E_D, Japanese Toilets, technology gone too far?
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7 October 2002
Another from the SheDork, A redneck photo album.
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From the She-Dork, Entirely too much happiness. Unfortunately I couldn't find Todd (of Flutterby Fame)'s email address so taht he could use this for a punishment link.
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Wow. Just realized I've been doing BorkLog for 2 years now. First entry was 6 October 2000. I still regularly read Flutterby, which has developed
into a pretty neat community. I don't read Joel on Software much anymore. Most of his stuff lately has been microsoft cheerleading.
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We just received a very odd snail-mail wacko letter today. Postmarked Pittsburgh, hand-addressed and written, switching between red and blue ink. It started off with
The motive driving suicide volunteers is revenge. They have stopped fighting to liberate Palestine. They have suspended the dream of a state. They now dream of killing as many Jews as possible
(whoa). What made it even more bizarre on first-reading is that "suicide volunteer" to me is someone who answers a suicide hotline. "why would they watn to kill Jews?" before I made the connection. A number of phrases in this letter (unsigned, no return address) also appear in This article from Google's cache. Also included were 4 (Christian) Bible tracts. All very strange. As far as we can tell, no Anthrax powder.
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6 October 2002
From EvanD, his welcoming speech to the latest WPLUG general users meeting. It's using some research technology that takes a 2-D pictures and some text, and does that to it. (requires Real Player)
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5 October 2002
From jo2y, an arramgement of my second favorite christmas carol, Sing Christmas Bells, Burgerking Style.
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4 October 2002
Found on flutterby, Top joke in several (industrialized western) countries. Belgium (ugh) is my favorite one. It would have been really interesting to see the top jokes for cultures different than our own. "OK, so a Mimbari, a Narn, and a Vorlon walk in to a bar..."
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2 October 2002
HiMonkey costume gallery.
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1 October 2002
Happy 10012002.
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30 September 2002
Another piece of brilliance flashimation from the Rather Good Crew, Viking Kittens.
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From rzolf (yeah, he's still alive), The Hacker's Diet. The dude that founded AutoDesk describes a weight-loss plan based on sound engineering principles.
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27 September 2002
A Plague o'Penguins be upon ye.
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Apollo 11's Customs papers entering Hawaii. Apparently it's real.
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Found on Fark, SpeedStacks, a new School Sport involving stacking and unstacking little plastic cups. Yeah. Apparently some young ladies are quite good at it, although the fark forum perverts were contemplating what life would be like once she reached dating age.
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24 September 2002
Stupidity is alive and well. "hey! let's set our clothes on fire! It'll be fun!"
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23 September 2002
It is with a very heavy heart that I announce that Rusty, the hacker cat, has passed on from this life. Somehow last night while we were out with friends, she escaped from the house and wandered into traffic. After you've been with a cat for 18-19 years, she can really get under your skin. Right now we're in a state of shock knowing we'll never experience her attention and adorable little habits again, and I am very, very sad.
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21 September 2002
Whew, glad this week is over. It's been non-stop running around. I didn't get a chance to tell folks about the trip last weekend. The Spousal Overunit & I went to NYC on the train (very civilized way to travel, except for the parts where the train goes backwards. That made me green). On the plus side, I found a power plug on the way back and got in 6 hours of quality Civilization III time. We stayed at chez Vinod, a ritzy hotel in the central lower eastern upper west side of manhatten, had several nice meals out (a pretty good mexican place, and an expensive italian place. But hey, it was our anniversary). Sharlotte went to a Heckelphone convention. (If I never have to explain what a heckelphone is, I'll be happy). I went to a of
the OpenACS IRC crew at the Brooklyn Brewery's Beerfest. (Talli came up with that idea). I finally got to meet Talli and *.phylax in person. Lots of pretty good beer, lots of pretty young ladies not wearing underwear. Also some pretty good bbq available (well, at least compared to the abomination that is Ham BBQ that is prevelant in this area. ham+bbq sauce does not equal barbecue goodness.)
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DougEDoug found a great one: Translating the Lord's Prayer into l33t-sp34k.
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Cool, the O'Reily book on TeX available for free.
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20 September 2002
No! Jupiter is doing something wrong!
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18 September 2002
The Story About The Baby, a parent's journal with his newborn. The style strikes me as a cranky Dave Barry, but I imagine it's a more accurate picture of the Newborn Experience.
After Cordelia came out, I went over to where they were cleaning off the gook to get a good look and touch her gently. The nurse said, "Say something to her."
Being about 8 seconds into my first experience with newborns, I said the first thing which came into my mind: "Hello, Cordelia. Welcome to the world. It's not going to get much better." The nurses did not approve.
Every parenting book is 20% actual true stuff based on science (e.g. change its diaper when it pisses itself, don't shake the baby, don't let it play with plastic bags) and 80% completely unsupported axe-grinding on the part of the author (e.g. don't feed your child meat, don't use a pacifier, don't bind feet).
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16 September 2002
Remember Mr. T. Cereal?. It's cool!
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13 September 2002
Billings has a great little opinion piece on september 11. People are turning it into a hallmark moment. Next year, I expect they'll come out with a Patriot Day greeting card, for $3.19. Buy the 2004 Ford Explorer this Patriot Day at a 1.9 APR! Call your loved one with Sprint PCS! Mourn over lost ones with Kleenex® brand tissues!
I'm having the same kind of problems, like what I have with the "forced happiness" holidays like Valentine's, thanksgiving, christmas, etc, that the General Perception is that there is Something Seriously Wrong With You if you're not happy happy happy. Luckily I don't have a TV hooked up to the "real world", so I've been happy to missed the leadup of obligatory forced display of mourning. I have no problem with individuals doing something to comemerate the day, like Vinoodle describing a vigil he saw wednesday night. I do have a problem with the press whipping us in to a sorrowpatrioticohmygod frenzy for bigger ratings.
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11 September 2002
Remember the old Atari 2600 Adventure game? Someone has ported it to Quake 3.
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Forbidden Thoughts about September 11, letters Salon received after 9/11/2001.
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10 September 2002
Attack of the surly teenager Clones coming to imax.
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iCal is finally out. I'm in love. It's not quite up to the level of ease of use and convenience that Daymaker had, but it's very nice.
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8 September 2002
Scooby Dooby Cthulhu!!He and Velma
would shoot up a mixture of heroin, speed, cocaine, tumbleweed, Pepsi,
lettuce, and sixteen secret spices and listen to Ethel Merman backwards,
trying to find the hidden messages in it. One day, however, they tried it
with Pat Boone, and were shocked to find the message ‘Sacrifice the local
Democratic Party Headquarters to Hastur. Do it now, with an axe. And get
a haircut, you bum.'.
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7 September 2002
I made this RedMeat cartoon about the network printer awhile ago after a wplug installfest. Wplug regulars will recognize the players involed.
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3 September 2002
Another online personality test. What kind of industrial solvent are you?.
 | SOYGOLD® 2000:
You are a water-rinsible solvent that contains no petroleum distillates. Your low VOCs (4.89%, 43 g/L) has been tested by EPA Method Number 24. You have ultra-low evaporative properties—0.005 @ 76° Fahrenheit relative to n-butyl acetate (NBAC) = 1—and are an FDA approved surfactant. | Find out what kind of industrial solvent you are |
|
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2 September 2002
in celebration of the coming of the second LoTR movie, domo-kun sent me a pointer to this great quicktime movie, The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
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30 August 2002
From Billings, a couple of iMacs in a CMU classroom. DougEDoug suggested it'd be nice if those imacs had a software-controllable motor to adjust the monitor position... with a little clever programming, the geeks at cmu could create a nice ballet in that room
or better yet...
a web interface where the general public could disrupt class
"Click! The Mac up Down! The Mac!"
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Just when you thought web interfaces couldn't get any more annoying. This Umax Scanner support page has a navbar that moves back and forth. So, not only do you now have a moving target to it, it's a visual distraction and induces sea-sickness.
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Candy-based breakfast cereals are generally a bad idea. Nerds Cereal was an exceptionally bad idea.
Each box of Nerds cereal was, like the candy, separated into two sides. If you ate it straight out of the box, it wasn't so bad. But once you added milk to the equation? A chemical metamorphosis took place that transformed a decent dry snack to a living, eating Hell.
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Porruka over at MacEdition has a nice editorial on usefulness, timeliness, and reviews. One of the things I really like about MacEdition (aside from the fact I know some of the folks there and they publish the spew
words
I
write) is that
they actually think through a lot of what they do, as witnessed from Porruka's notes about doing product reviews. It's not just "throw a bunch of news up and see what sticks".
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29 August 2002
Whoa. Trocutus at team banzai found this Really Cool Toy Store. The Kapla Planks look really cool, as do the Scalino Marble Runs.
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A comprehensive guide, How to write unmaintainable code.
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28 August 2002
Excerpt from a suicide bomber's manual, except this one is WWII era for the Kamikazis.
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Enna found a neat little toy, Color Brewer - Selecting good color schemes for maps. It has a map of a chunk of the US, and some controls to play with to try to get a good choice of colors for showing data. The actual data on the map doesn't mean anything, it's constructed so that the colors can be evaluated in different scenarios. And it's just fun to play with.
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27 August 2002
one for Crazy Erin: 70,000 Jedi in Australia, at least according to answers in the Australian census.
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The Canon, a brief overview of the term from someone who is kinda sick of the Pachelbel Canon in D. I personally really like the piece (but in its slower form. Most of the recordings out there today are just Too Damn Fast). Well, I like the piece to listen to. Playing it in woodwind or brass ensembles is sheer torture, especially when you're stuck like me on the bass part paying the same 8 note phrase over and over and over and over and over and over....
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26 August 2002
Yee haw! It's finally been announced that I'm building a class in Core Mac OS X Programming with the Big Nerd Ranch folks. I'm even listed on their who's-who list. So everyone should be sure to mortgage the cat and come down and take a class.
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Apples as tools of love. (no, not the ibrator!) The Girl in the Picture, an iMovie marriage proposal. “This past May,” writes Josh Rafofsky, “I decided to propose to my girlfriend Lainie in the most heartfelt, creative way that I could think of. And so I took her to a local silent movie theater under the guise we were there to see a Buster Keaton film… and instead knocked her socks off with my presentation of ‘The Girl in the Picture.’ Imagine her surprise when she saw *me* up on the big-screen, in 1920’s duds, in a personalized short film I’d made just for her! It was a truly a golden moment in our lives, something we will never, ever forget.”
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Billings pointed me at two mp3s that will surely invoke projectile vomiting, and is surely a sure sign of the apocolypse (or at least we may be living in hell). Christmas in the Stars, starring C-3P0, and Odds Against Christmas, what do you get a wookiee for christmas when he already owns a comb. I need to go bathe, I feel so unclean now.
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25 August 2002
We just got back from a great weekend. Chunks got married this weekend, and we went out to the Chicago suburbs to witness said Hitching. Travelled friday morning, rented a car (which turned out to be a great idea since the transportation promised by the hotel wasn't available on the day of the wedding), got settled, and took a nap. We had to get up at 4 in the morning so we could get to the airport (1:30 away) and go through all the Crap That Is Air Travel these days.
We discovered there was an Apple store in the vicinity that was doing the "open at 10:20 so you can buy Jaguar". We arrived at the Mall around 10:30, and found about 1200 folks ahead of us in line, and the Mall Police started turning folks away around 10:45 or so. Luckily with us in line was Steve and his kid brother. Steve is quite the gregarious individual and entertained us with all sorts of stories while we waited. He's also a former Marine, so he and the Spousal Overunit could swap stories involving nothing but acronyms. By about 2:00 or so we managed to get into the store. man what a nice store! (having never seen one in person before) After wandering around for about 45 minutes, playing with the machines (like the 17" imac. Beautiful machine), we gathered our stuff (Jaguar box, Civ III, some DVD media, and a publishing tool for the S.O.) and waited in line to check out. Turns out the guy ahead of us had gone to the August Big Nerd Ranch with Zman and EvanD. We chatted about stuff for awhile, and I talked up the class I'm doing for them (more details tomorrow). We also talkd Mac nostalgia with the guy behind us wearing the "Bongo's Dream House" t-shirt from the late 80's. Anyone remember the HyperDrive? We finally got to the hotel around 3:30, and slept in.
Saturday was the day of the Chunks-n-SaneSnow hitching. It was a somewhat formal, evening affair. Some of SaneSnow's extended family came over from Korea. The wedding service was bilingual in English and Korean. The minister occasionally tripped over his words (the Happy Couple was almost Husband and Husband, plus the mental image of Them being Prince and Princess gave everyone a chuckle. I couldn't imagine a Chunks wedding without a lot of laughter). During Reception and Dinner, I had a chance to catch up with some aD folks like HughBacca[kahn], TOffer, JSC, McYoon Finally met DocWolf, but we didn't get much of a chance to talk. Bummer.
Chunks had asked me to bring my balloons, so I had my little bag of balloons (well, it can hold about 5-600 balloons). After the dancing commenced, I played with some of the young'uns at the wedding. Maybe about a half-dozen or so kids. I think we went through easily half my stash, and it looked like a clown exploded over everywhere. Hopefully Chunks can get me some pictures once everything's calmed down for them. And then after that we came home on Sunday. Wheeeee.
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After a long absence, Acts of Gord has a couple of updates.
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22 August 2002
From the UK Guardian, Chicken Hawks, about the warmongering Republican right that all conveniently managed to dodge military service in Vietman, yet seem to have no qualms about sending our youth (including Crazy Erin) into battle.
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Confessions of a Isolationist Wannabe, America isn't out to take over the planet. We're just the world's designated driver.
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21 August 2002
MonkeyAss posted this article, Hackers beg boring people to stop encrypting email.
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Television without pity does the MST3K treatment to StarTrek, the Motionless Picture. It's amazing how long this thing goes on, but it's pretty amsuing in places.
Ilia and [Deceker] have an interface, and we learn that they were once "a thing" on her planet, and he left without saying goodbye, but she wouldn't have been able to say goodbye either. Man, throw in an "Imzadi" and a fat guy and you've got TNG.
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20 August 2002
Woo hoo! A whole new class of Windows exploits, supposedly "a flaw so great that it would threaten national security if windows source code were to be disclosed". The gist of the flaw is that any running desktop program can send messages (events) to any other program without any kind of authentication. In this particular case, the author tricked VirusScan into executing arbitrary code and ended up elevating his privileges.
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The HP Museum has a page on the HP-16C, programmer's calculator (still one of my favorites). Not only does it have some marketing information about the machine, it also has some pictures of the guts, too.
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19 August 2002
Psychephylax, the multiple-personality court jester of #openacs is a pretty talented photographer. Here's his pbase photo gallery. In particular be sure to check out the DPChallenge Entries which have some good stuff.
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From DavB, GobeProductive to go GPL. Back in my BeOS days, GoBe software was *the* thing. I can't wait to dig into it and see how they did stuff.
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16 August 2002
Oh, also, a new Blode, Blode 5, Toad Turmoil. It's short one this time, as Hairy has discovered new superpowers.
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From ShawnC, PeanutButterJellyWitDaBaseballBat, a truly ground-breaking flashimation.
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Retrocrush takes on Deadly Toys of Days Gone By. Kinda surprising, I had 2 of them, played a friend that had another one, and I'm still alive and normal. (well, alive anyway)
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13 August 2002
Why we yawn.
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From MonkeyAss, a thinkgeek t-shirt I might actually think of getting.
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12 August 2002
From G-R/E.D., Tales of the Plush Cthulhu. Fenris got his baby daughter one of these plush Cthulhus. The picture of the little one sucking on the face-tentacle of the Dark One was priceless.
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New pictures from september 11, by Bill Biggart who was killed when the second tower collapsed. His equipment was found and the digital pictures recovered.
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11 August 2002
Found on Fark, Stained Apron, stories from the trenches in the restaurant business.
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EXTREME YURT MANIA!!!!!!!!
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10 August 2002
The World's Worst Superheroes, including both sets of annoying sidekicks on SuperFriends. WonderTwin Powers, Coffeemate!
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8 August 2002
Found on Flutterby, Yeti@home, most important distributed computing project. Download Version 1.00 of YETI@Home for: Windows, BeOs, OS2, Linux, Amiga Workbench, Atari ST, Altair, TRS-80, Vectrex, Babbage's Difference Engine, Palm Pilot, Sega Genesis and Timex Indiglo (sorry, not available for Macintosh).
typical...
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6 August 2002
Whoa. New Odd Todd Cartoon. Laid Off: Annual Report.
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5 August 2002
Yay! Another bit published over at MacEdition: Yet Another Mac OS X Command Line Introduction. Looks like we made MacMinute (briefly):X MacEdition: "Yet another Mac OS X command line introduction"
August 5 - 07:39 ET MacEdition's Mark Dalrymple has posted a new "BOLTS"
(Brave OS X: Learn Techy Stuff) feature in which he offers a hands-on
tutorial covering the Terminal in Mac OS X. "Yet another Mac OS X command
line introduction" walks you through a number of handy tips, tricks and
useful things you can do using Mac OS X's command line interface in the
Terminal application.
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You just have to admire folks who are So into their breakfast.
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Retrocrush's Movie sequals that are better than the original. I'm surprised Police Academy MCMLXVII wasn't on the list.
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Billings had a pointer to the Polygeek test. I'm 64% geek:
| You are 64% geek |
 | You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other. |
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3 August 2002
The Vinodster recently joined a hospital in the upper-east side (NY), and is currently working for The Bork Team.
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10 worst concept albums of all times. From the deconstruction of Emerson, Lake and Palmer "Tarkus":
First Bad Sign: The inside cover art spells out the gobbledygook story in eleven panels. Stylistically, it's a bad mix between Destroy All Monsters and the stations of the cross.
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2 August 2002
I missed out on the whole Logo thing during elementary school (alas I was too old by the time it swept the mid eighties). Some folks at MIT have come up with StarLogo, logo for the new generation. There are still turtles, but it's now a big parallel environment with an arbitrary number of turtles frolicking around. The tutorial builds a termite colony.
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31 July 2002
Got this from domo-kun: Sabbatum, 12 Black Sabbath songs, sung in Latin, arranged in the style of the
14th century, by an Estonian early music group. Next thing you'll be telling me someone is covering Kraftwerk songs with a Latin beat. uh. Never mind.
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The fever's finally started coming down (yay!) and I can swallow again (yay!) and the airport base station is back from the shop (yay! yay!). Hopefully by thursday or friday I'll be functional again. In the meantime, Billings found a Wonderful little cartoon.
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29 July 2002
While waiting for email to load, I came across a brief interview with the guy who brought us Sea Monkeys.
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You know you're sick when you don't even feel like surfing. between 101.X and 103.5
degree fevers since yesterday. It feel like an ewok has crwaled out of my throat. And now I have this ewok in my house to deal with. *sigh*.
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24 July 2002
It's good to see people when they're passionate about what they love. Especially breakfast cereals. The Honeycomb
Hideout and one man's obsession with the commercials.
Don't worry though, everyone's able to solve their differences amicably enough. They sing the Honeycomb song! It goes, word-for-word, like this: 'Honeycomb's big, yeah yeah yeah! It's not small, no no no!' Obviously, a great deal of time, money, and effort went into those lyrics. No wonder Post had to dog it with the Oaf and the stagnant robot. They went through most of the budget with that hot song number.
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22 July 2002
Another Obligatory Personality Test found over at Flutterby: What were you in a Past Life. Turns out I'm a philosopher. (and there's a running set of results at flutterby). There's also a What Spooky Being are You?. I'm an Ogopogo:
What Spooky Being are You?
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Things are kind of slow around here lately. My Airport base station developed a "Thermal Problem" and is at the doktor getting fixed. That means the Spousal Overunit & I are sharing an ethernet connection. So not much time for surfing. I've been keeping myself busy writing stuff for The Class, and also burning too much time playing games (Current distractiosn are StarWars:Galactic Battlegrounds and Sim ThemePark). We're taking the end of this week off to retreat to Mr. Bob's camp. Sharz has soem desigining and stitching she has to do for a class she's teaching in August, and I have a bunch of Mac OS X and unix stuff to iron out. Wheeeee!
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20 July 2002
Transcript of an Operation TIPS finking report.
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19 July 2002
I don't understand any of the text, but here are some screen shots of a domo-kun game. In the meantime, folks can enjoy making their own domo-kun. Looks like it (the game, not the cutout) is a Game Boy Advance game.
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17 July 2002
RatherGood has a new flashimation: Mark Llama, Gerbil Farmer, including gerbils and and helium. Introduces the Dirigiberbil.
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16 July 2002
What D&D Character are You (I'm a "True Neutral Halfling Monk Bard" wheeee). Actually, I should add that to my resume. "I am an experienced unix and macintosh software developer, an Oracle 8i Certified DBA, and am a True Neutral Halfling Monk Bard"
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Cool! We're finally getting Nightwatch!
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15 July 2002
I want one.
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14 July 2002
Knight Rider, deconstructed.
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13 July 2002
From sash in #openacs, The Shakespeare Programming Language.
Thus, ``the difference between the square of the difference between my little pony and your big hairy hound and the cube of your sorry little codpiece'' means 60.
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12 July 2002
Outside of our back dorr there is a little birdhouse that looks like a little Swiss chalet. (leftover from the original owners of this place). A bird family has moved in. Whenever we go out the back door, the mammabird launches out of the house with a great flutter
of wings and quite a bit of velocity. If you're not careful, you can end up with a bird bouncing off of your skull. Walking by the birdhouse the other day I heard some little "cheep cheep cheep" sounds. Peering inside, there were 5 little baby birds in there staring back out. They're very cute - nothing but beak. We're not quite sure what kind they are. Hopefully they'll get big enough to start flying soon.
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Another Something Awful photoshop digest. This time it's Mutations of Classic Art. I especially like the Star Wars ones, and the
3-D Jesus (at the bottom).
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10 July 2002
The first Classical Music Animutation. Pavarotti Loves Elephants.
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That psychefunkic Grand-Rapper E.D. passed on this
true 3-D display. Don't know why, but I want one. Still a little pricy. Can you imgine the snow-globes you could make with this baby...
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9 July 2002
elgooG, for all your web-searching needs when you fall into the evil parallel dimension (again).
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8 July 2002
Memepool had a pointer to this cute little japanese carton bunny with a plunger on its head. Chunks, naturally, found a picture of a japanese commuter with a plunger on her head.
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From the makers of Weeeeeee!, a new flash video, ABC.
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7 July 2002
Sleeping turns practice into Perfection, or, how taking a nap helps improve performance. Sounds good to me. Time for a nap...
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5 July 2002
Some mildly amusing Knock-Knock Jokes.
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4 July 2002
At the NPMUG meeting last night (pretty lightly attended due to the impending 4st of July holiday), they showed the apple Switch Ads. Someone then informed us that MacBoy has some parodies of those ads:
Annoying Dell Dude, Big Brother, and of course, Bill Gates.
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1 July 2002
Grand Rapper E-D comes through again. Kaiju Big Battel. My favorite so far is Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle.
n Y2K crisis, maximum production levels forcing Cantonese worker at having special bowl of chicken soup cooking on stove. Because not fresh, acquired many special strengths plus also preservative can. Big cleaver action gives the scary function, chases the weaker fiend. Roundish can can slippery the attacking monster, makes fighting always the exciter. Also with product repackage makes identity invisible but always unfriendly inside.
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Something Awful has run a review of the first Lard of the Rings movie, intentionally adding mispelling and inaccuracies to see what kind of email response they'd get. And they got some real howlers. More Power to the Orks, Man!
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Denshi pointed out that "Domokun Vinod" is a googlewhack (meaning a pair of words that don't have a result). This is a very sad state of affairs and should be corrected. correction. Tom Neff was kind enough to inform me that a GoogleWhack isn't a google search with zero results, but a search with exactly one result. I sit humbly corrected. But it's still a crime that "Domokun Vinod" has no hits at all.
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Another one from G-R E.D: Campus Crusade for Cthulhu.
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Some random guy on #c posted the url to Exploding Dog (no, it's not exploding dogs). Some guy who draws stick figures based on small phrases that people send him, usually with a slightly sick or twisted bent to them.
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28 June 2002
Wow. It's been a couple of days. Real Life (a couple of concerts, assisting the Spousal Overunit at a band camp [sorry jo2y, no flutes involved], and sweltering in such heat and humidity that makes any kind of mental effort totally futile) has distracted me from the more important task of surfing the net. To tide you over, The Sims: Hardcore Action to be announced at MacWorld, New York.
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24 June 2002
Folks who were in the Mac's stone age may remember Cliff Johnson's fascinating word puzzle games like The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three. He's letting folks download them for free over at his Fool's Errand site.
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22 June 2002
Huzzah! We finally got all the yech cleaned out of the pool (lot of labor scrubbing and cleaning. But that first swim was really nice). A personal pool is pretty decadent, but luckly I can assuage my concience by reminding myself it came with the house. To help out with the day-to-day cleaning, we picked up an AquaBugfrom Brad, the local Pool Guy. This thing is just too cute. The (not so) little critter scurrying around on the bottom of the pool, its little antenna waving in the current. Of course, the face and antenna don't actually do anything but make it look cute. Brad was relating a story about someone who bought it coming back and complaining "it just goes around in circles, like it's not seeing where to clean". D'oh!
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#c on irc.openprojects.net has a small info page with pointers to docs helpful for folks wrestling with C and unix programming.
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21 June 2002
The difference between cats and dogs.
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Hello Kitty Has No Mouth, and yet she can control the minds of millions to do her evil bidding.
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19 June 2002
Yesterday we opened our (above ground) swimming pool that had been closed since October of 2000. We didn't open it last year due to electrical issues with the house that took months to straighten out. I was expecting the inside of the pool to be pretty disgusting after being sealed up for 20 months. The water (a bit low) actually wasn't too bad. All we saw was some pink ewwwwch on the walls and floor and a few small patches of algae.
The pool cover was another story. A couple of hundred pounds of wet, decaying leaves, with lots of water and water bugs. We got the cover folded over and dragged to one side of the pool, but couldn't lift it out (waaaaay too heavy). One thing I didn't mention that this is a big pool. The previous owners of our house put in a 28 foot pool. That's a bit short of 21000 gallons. It's big. The pool cover was big. It collected a big mess.
After siphoning out a lot of the water, we noticed the water was pretty clear (not the nasty soupy stuff you'd expect. The cover had gotten pourous enough over the years to allow the regular pool water get into the leaf mess, and so we were draining the pool we were trying to fill. argh! So we pulled the folded over cover as far out of the pool as we could, and got a 1-gallon juice pitcher and started bailing out leaves. Boy was that gross. But after half an hour or so of being elbow-deep in decaying vegetable and animal matter, it wasn't so bad. I can kinda see how janitors, vets who stick their arms up cows butts, or MFC programmers can do their jobs on a daily basis. (Well, ok, maybe not the MFC programmers).
Finally after about an hour of labor, three wheelbarrow loads full of wet leaves and swamp water, we got the cover off and could start the cleaning process in earnest. Luckly chemical engineering being to the state of what it is, it looks like we'll just have to do some vacuuming and a little wall scrubbing. I'm really looking forward to having the pool working. This summer is shaping up to be a hot one, and we don't have air conditioning. (I know, poor poor pitiful folks). I'd rather not subcomb to the A/C monster, so having a big tub of water to dunk into (and maybe get some exercise in) will be quite welcome.
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17 June 2002
From DavB, DavP's emacs page, with lots of little utilities.
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Things have been a little quiet around here. Congrats to jo2y for getting his Red Hat Certified Engineer certification. Once he gets his super-hero costume (and I get mine from Oracle), the two of us can go join JB-W at The Justice League. Also, Borkware has gotten a minor face-lift. Wheeee....
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Gig Alert: The Washington Symphonic Orchestra (Washington, PA) will have its debut concert this thursday.at 7:30. Wheeeee....
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Crazy Erin (who only slightly enjoys Star Wars) pointed me to a review of
Star Warped. Guess I need to find some old Mac CD shops now.
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A newspaper write-up of the Washington Symphonic Orchestra.
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Bummer. no more ibrotha. It is a sad day.
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14 June 2002
From PoppaVic on #c, K&R online.
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13 June 2002
Anyone remember the goofy Hostess ads in comic books? Turns out there was a whole Set of Restrictions on the poor folks who had to write them.
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What really happened to the Russian nuclear sub, the Kursk.
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12 June 2002
From GregH, the Brian Stein Boston school of driving Training Film.
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While talking to Rzolf about crop dusting, I was reminded of CropDuster, by Slipshod software, a running joke in Softalk magazine (which was the best computer magazine ever printed. I miss it some times). Articles that ranged the gamut from newbie introductions to hard-core techincal details. Tons of reviews of games and VisiCalc add-ons. After a bit of a net search, I found this essay, a ride on the wayback machine about an arbitrary issue of Softalk that someone came across. Apple2History also has a Softalk entry, about 3/4 the way into this page.
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11 June 2002
The text for Mist Rogers' Dartmouth Commencement Address. Back in my sadder days when I used to watch Arsinio Hall, the show when Mister Rogers showed up had the longest standing ovation of any other guest, and that was before he started talking! Amazing that he helped shape a generation. Here's a Timeline of achievments.
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10 June 2002
Back from the Big Nerd Ranch, turned in the rental car, and finally have everything unpacked. It was a great week (well, aside from having some kind of stomach bug that
knocked me out of a day), met some really fun folks, ate entirely too much good food. The entertainment for the drive down and back (about 8-9 hours) was a book-on-tape of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A phenomenal book, one I try to read every two or three years.
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6 June 2002
iBrotha points out the flaws in the "Macs as vulnerable as PCs to viruses" article.
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31 May 2002
Dan Lyke over at Flutterby has a great Comparison of Cyberpunk to today's reality.
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Woot! I'm heading down to the Big Nerd Ranch again, this time as a TA for the "Intro to Cocoa" class, for a week. It'll be nice having a 100% geek get-away again.
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30 May 2002
Kah marries Boom. I wonder if there is a Ms. Oom and a Mr. Pah-pah that are dating.
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folks who were kids in the late 60s, early 70s. Anyone remember Kookla Kukla, Fran and Ollie? I only vaguely do, in a weird disturbing kind of way. Having found The Unofficial Kuklapolitan Web Page, I'm reminded that it was weird and disturbing. As Docwolf says "Holy crap are those puppets scary".
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All about setting a NeXTcube on fire. "Sometimes its really hard to get things burning." He then walked over
to a storage shed and wheeled back an oxygen-acetylene torch. "This should set it on fire," he said with
a gleam in his eyes.
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Yahoo story on the ceremony denoting the end of the WTC site cleanup.
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29 May 2002
First Church of Pac Man.
O Pac-Man, glutton divine,
Thy roundness is exceeded only by thy yellowness.
Thou takest away the barriers in the maze of life,
Thou makest fruit to appear before me,
Thou turnest my enemies blue.
I humbly offer this quarter unto thee
As a symbol of my sacrifice,
And stuff.
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DougEDoug draws a startling correlation between Harry Potter and modern-day terrorism. (it's the May 29 item) I can't help but wonder: Are the recently released DVDs really being used to fund anti-terrorist activities? By not buying them, are the terrorists Winning? Oh the humanity.
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28 May 2002
Woot! Water on Mars!.
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I've been paging through the Watchtower Indoctrination Process, and am finding it fascinating reading. I don't really know that much about the JW, outside of their amazing ability to quickly build ugly buildings with no windows, and occasially telling a polite Witness to bugger off and not bug me at home, but this is a neat peek into the process used to gather more Faithful to their cause.
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In Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses, What's Up With Atheism, about the atheists that think not that there is no God, but that they just can't believe in one, and the conculsions that can be drawn.
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27 May 2002
If you're a mac head, Crazy Apple Rumors is the best site for late-breaking Mac news and analyis. No article today, though. We'll be off on Monday. Remember to hug a veteran this weekend!
Also remember to let go after a little while. There were some complaints about that last year.
Have a great weekend!
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From Grand-Rapper E.D., 3 Amish men charged in buggy race, crash.
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The 80/20 rule.
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24 May 2002
German newspaper mocks Bush's 'historic' speech.
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How DNA works, in terms a programmer can understand.
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Tapping the Alphageek noosphere. Someone ran an image sniffer over the wireless network at some kind of geek conference, seeing what everyone was surfing during dull presentations.
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Scary thought for the day. Casualty counts in Pakistan / India nuclear war.
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Found on Flutterby, teacher surfs porn while students take test, unfortunately he forgot to turn the overhead projector off...
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23 May 2002
rzolf will probably do this project next. Pink Hello Kitty Laptop.
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Finally! A domo-kun FAQ.
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From Chunks, ook!, a turing-complete programming language for orangutans.
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22 May 2002
Food Canning News from the UK. North American salmon canners appear to have cut back on the filling of 418g cans this year in favour of 213g. The larger than expected production of smaller size cans could lead to lower prices for consumers.
. Also includes canned haggis.
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Cameos and Hidden stuff from Attack of the Clowns Clones. A lot of it seems like hard-core Starwars nerd insider hoo-haws, but there's some amusing stuff there. Check out the back of the cockpit behind Obi-Wan's head. There is a deer-whistle attached to his speeder! If you don't know, these are commonly put on bumpers of cars to warn deer to get out of the way. Are there flying deer on Coruscant?
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21 May 2002
Microsoft economics for the Xbox faulty?
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Apparently Mr. T. is 50! To celebrate, here are some sound clips.
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15 May 2002
Gig Alert: we'll be down in NoVA this weekend for (maybe the last) Mid Atlantic Wind Conductor's Conference. Final concert at 5:30 sunday at Centreville High School.
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14 May 2002
Since I purchased a nifty T-Shirt from the James O'Kane Fund, I think that makes me eligible to include this Spiffy Image: 
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w00t! Article #2 over at MacEdition. Arrrr, Avast Ye Screensavers.
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13 May 2002
DougEDoug found the mother-load of personality tests. emode.com. My Theme Song is "I feel Good". ooowwwWWWwwww! gitdown! gitfunky!
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Working without Copyleft, or, "How I learned to love open source without handing my politics to the FSF".
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From TVL, Desks harbor more germs than toilet seats. Anyone who has ever seen my cage work area would believe that in a second.
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WorldRPS.com, the Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide.
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11 May 2002
Something for CrazyErin, The Real truth about Jar-Jar Binks. My contain Ep II spoilers.
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Very similar to the (ancient) snoot.com "who would win in a fight", is What's Better. Between two randomly selected images, pick which one is better. See how they fare.
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10 May 2002
Mental Ward Film Productions, where they built a life-size Millennium Falcon in their back yard.
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Rzolf sent me this Interview With Mike Tyson, one of the most surreal pieces of work I have read in a long time. Do you think Jesus would love me?
I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a
drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that?
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9 May 2002
Web of Distraction, 47% of online 'work time' is in work-avoidance mode. Personally I think that number is too low, and I'm trying my best to boost the stats.
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Guys like this give smiley-faces a bad name. Pipe Bomber
planned smiley face bomb pattern.
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8 May 2002
Graphical NetNack.
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ChipWorks Silicon Art Galleries, hidden art in the traces of IC chips. The folk who found this have six (6) optical microscopes that provide them with the magnification required to do their analysis work. This ChipWorks place sounds pretty neat. From their FAQ
Can Chipworks reverse engineer contents of memory to extract algorithms from it?
Yes - many of today's systems contain programmable devices such as embedded processors, DSPs, or
microcontrollers that execute from an internal or external program memory. Chipworks can analyze the
code embedded in the program memory and extract an algorithm.
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Giant floating City. Hurricanes probably not welcome. DougEDoug pointed out they have their own site, FreedomShip.com.
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We went to see the Pittsburgh Symphony last nigh, with guest soloist Itzhak Perlman. I've always been a fan of Perlman's recordings, but have not had a chance to see him Live. All I can say is "wow". THe fist half just the Symphony, doing Mozart #39 and the exploding Blue Danubes. The average audience member was pretty pumped, since the EBD got a standing ovation from about 2/3 of the crowd (come on
guys, it was a nice performance. You're supposed to save the Standing-O for the finest performances you've ever heard). On the second half Perlman came out and played the Mendelsohhn concerto (one of my favorites). And that was one of the finest performances I've ever heard. Outside of the prinicpal oboe noisily blowing water out of her horn at inopprtune moments, it was a truly sublime experience. Also, surprisingly enough, the crowd here (which was more of a pops / mass culture audience) was much, much better behaved than the usual subscription concert crowd. This is the first outing, whether it was the Symphony or a movie, that I didn't have some annoying idiot talking behind me.
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Muslims Suspend The Laws Of Physics, a debunking of the popular theories as to why the WTC collapsed.
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Excavation, at 7 WTC.
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7 May 2002
HiMonkey has a new recipe! Cinco de Mayo Guacamole and nachos. Includes action shots! And Songs as well!
they make you feel good
from your head to your toes!
start your day with big a bowl
of guacamolios.
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Something for CrazyErin, Star Wars Chicks. Who says that Star Wars fans all have to be pasty-faced (male) geeks?
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6 May 2002
One of the first truly useful uses of web technology. The CMU Free Food Cam. Have
leftover food from a party or biological experiment? Put it in front of the
free food cam and watch it be devoured by hungry grad students.
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5 May 2002
Who needs bottles of Ranch Dressing when you have Coffeemate.
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4 May 2002
DougEDoug told me that today is National StarWars Day! May the Fourth be with you.
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3 May 2002
Flutterby has a pointer to The first (reported) SegWay accident (at least that I know of). I doubt an accident on a MegWay would be that bad. Speaking of MegWay, she has a pointer to an airline FAQ, with instructions on how checking dry ice and christmas trees.
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New form of life discovered?
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2 May 2002
From rzolf, LegoDeath, a lego chamber of horrors. But the little lego guys keep smiling. Kind of spooky.
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From davb in #openacs, Domopers, Domo-kun meets the "Developers Developers Developers Developers" song.
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1 May 2002
Never underestimate marshmallows. You can use them to measure the speed of light
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30 April 2002
I don't have the TV hooked up to the outside world, so a TiVo is not on my radar in terms of commericalism-oriented longing. But it does looks like the TiVo world has a nice hacking spirit.
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PlagueDomes!, re-live all (well, two so far) of the Plagues that Moses brought down upon Egypt when he opened that six-pack of holy Whoop-Ass on ol' Pharoh-by.
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Apple Announces Macs Starting With Remaining Letters of The Alphabet
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29 April 2002
Found on kuro5hin, Battleground God, a test of rational consistency of personal spritual / religious beliefs.
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A is A! Who be John Galt? Should I charge my friends a fee for bringing dessert to their dinner party? I have no idea, but a comment on Flutterby had a link to Making Fun of Objectivism.
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26 April 2002
From Talli in #openacs, A brief analysis of Spiderman, and those "comics" things.
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Who needs hamsterdance when you can have domo-kun dance?
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25 April 2002
International Mastermind of Terror likes goats.
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24 April 2002
Woot! I'm now a Published Author type. MacEdition has my review of the Big Nerd Ranch up. OBTW, Borkware is the project rzolf & I have been working on - our Mac OS X programming persona. If you know of anyone looking for Mac OS X application programming, gimme a shout.
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Retrocrush has a little article on dangerous playground equipment from yesteryear.
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23 April 2002
I wish all movie reviews were this concise.
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Word Up, fun flash game from OddTodd.
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22 April 2002
AppleFritter, all sorts of cool and weird retro Apple stuff.
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Thanks to Crazy Erin for finding Tales of the Blode 4. Who will win the Orange Game? Will Food find his fine food feed? Has alliteration completely run amok? Find out now.
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From denshi in #openacs, A penguin returns to the flock after seeing the world
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21 April 2002
Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. This is an idea I can really connect with - musical intruments you can then eat.
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From Fark, Man runs a marathon (above water) in 1940's deep-sea diving suit.
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19 April 2002
Hash Cash, a way exacting a "price" when doing internet stuff, like sending email and reducing spam.
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wrist-watch remote control lets you play woz-style pranks with people's TVs.
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Diff'rent Str'okes De'constructed, a fan who likes Diffrent Strokes. A lot.
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18 April 2002
This should make rzolf happy, Cheese for dental hygiene.
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From the ArtMonger, RedNeck, a (semi-) photo diary of a horrible next-door neighbor
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17 April 2002
Got this from L.L.Beanpole, The Tugboat Photo Story,
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16 April 2002
A cool 404 page
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Which Monty Python/Holy Grail character are you?. I'm Arthur, King of the Britons. (king o' th' who?)
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Top 10 Flash Videos of all time (so far). Most are sick, a couple totally perverted. Weeeeee!!!
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Whoa. DangerMouse has a website. DangerMouse was one of my favorite cartoons as kidling, and I think it was at least partially responsible for my sense of humor. My favorite episode (That I can remember) was the one where there was a replacement secretary who typed up that particular episode's script... badly, so they had to act out every typo and blunder. As expected, hilarity ensued.
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From jo2y, A Girl's Guide To Geek Guys.
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15 April 2002
Billings pointed out that Earth: Final Conflict is in its 5th season. I really liked the first season of the show, but the second season turned me off and I lost interest. I figured it had gone down the sink-hole along with VR-5, but it looks like they managed to stick around to tell the story.
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A last! A glass that will signal the wait staff when it gets low.
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13 April 2002
Cool! Industructable sandwiches. Now imagine crossing these guys with Spam.
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12 April 2002
From rzolf, Weird stuff in nature. This is just the 'D-F' page. There's other pages for the rest of the letters.
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Cool! New kind of matter found in the universe. maybe that'll explain some of the weird properties of the Dairy Queen "ice cream".
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From rzolf (he must really be slacking today), The *real* story of Alice and Bob, a gentle introduction to coding theory.
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Another from rzolf, Heroinware for gamers. I know that if I had access to usenet, IRC, and MUDs in college (this was before the WWW), I would
have quickly failed out. Luckily I got my education before the addictions kicked in.
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11 April 2002
Wine experts exposed as frauds.
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10 April 2002
Gotta love America. Where else can the Iron Butt Association run the SaddleSore 1000 and Bun Burner 1500. Congrats to GregH for doing the SaddleSore 1000.
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9 April 2002
First there was the PowerPC EIEIO instruction, and now there's CONFIG_HAPPYMEAL
in the Linux Kernel. Where will it end?
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From jo2y, Age Quiz. Pegged my age perfectly.
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Farewell Kenny. Now granted I haven't seen South Park in two years, but I kinda liked seeing the new and inventive ways for Kenny to meet his doom.
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Found by Billings, A geek's view of Gender Roles.
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8 April 2002
The Squeege that saved men's lives
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7 April 2002
One of the "educational advancements" that the "As Seen on TV Folks" were pushing during my kiddiehood was Chisenbop, a method
of doing basic math using just the hands. There were TV mini infomercials about it, with pictures of smiling kids doing weird stuff with their hands and getting A's in math. Some child progeny was even on Jhonny Carson doing the Chisenbop thang. Now there's an online tutorial.
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Two words that are quite disturbing when used together: Fantasy Pez. I've always found Pez to be disturbing. Little cartoon characters that vomit generic candy out of their necks.
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5 April 2002
From Crazy Erin, Hero Machine (no, it's not a sandwich maker), but a tool to make your RPG characters come to life.
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4 April 2002
From Billings-san, Return of Cattlecar Galactica?
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Fark.com does photoshopping contests. One of my favorites today is this one of a rather frightening shot of Natalie A. Portnam. I want a domo-kun. Anyone out there in net-land where to find one? Rzolf said Urban Outfitters had them, but alas they don't.
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Wow, a New use for Flash.
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3 April 2002
How to run a Microsoft-free shop.
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From flutterby, Keith Knight on What we can learn from Dubya. Also, Anti-unix website broken after it was moved off of unix servers.
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2 April 2002
I love the internet. Just when you think you've had the maximal "WTF?" experience, something new comes along, like eBunInTheOven.
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How Sock monkeys saved us from Y2K.
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Hokey Spokes Batman! Use your bicycle wheels to show graphics and text to the world. Looks like you can enter your own text messages too.
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a new Odd Todd flick.
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Ever wanted to know what fnord really is?
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RetroCrush is running a special on The top 100 monsters of all time.
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31 March 2002
Even though these are After My Time, Lame (saturday morning) cartoons of the 80s. From the same place, Mr. T. Jokes, also includes a deconstruction of the classic "Treat your Mother Right" song.
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Five Conflicts, an essay about MMO(RPG)Gs by the OtherTodd.
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Dem Peeps is one tough mutha's.
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Corporate Mofo Interviews Odd Todd.
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30 March 2002
From flutterby, The Mangonel LART Project. Turn your computer into a camera-controlled catapult.
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29 March 2002
Craig Mattocks (Hurricane Research Dude at the Big Nerd Ranch), has posted A story about llamas at the ranch), along with some Photos.
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Instructions on how to disassemble your APple Pro Keyboard, complete with pictures.
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Found on Macintouch, a foam-based computer.
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28 March 2002
Woo hoo! Passed my last Oracle 8i DBA Certification Test today! I don't have any huge plans to become a DBA (too much stress), but it was a nice curriculum to learn the guts of the database, plus proving to myself I could actually do it.
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Now this is cool: Computer keyboard that you can't get crumbs stuck in, and if you spill your Dr. Pepper all over it, no big deal. It just slows you down a bit.
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27 March 2002
jo2y, Lord High Executioner of WPLUG, has started his own weblog. Stop by, post some comments, and leave some pictures of Alyson Hannigan.
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How Dippy Birds Work!
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Cool Article about WhizBang, a local technology company.
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JustinSpace has a sequel to Obscene Interiors: Obscene Interiors II, where porn is deconstructed based on the (lack of) design sense of the rooms in which the pictures were taken. All of the models have been tastefully grayed out. as an added bonus, StarWars, designer edition.
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26 March 2002
Parallels between the 1930s leading to WWII, and the current happenings in the Middle East.
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Rzolf found the Proper place for americans to register their patriotism. Terrorists need not apply.
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Calvin and Hobbes Flash Games?
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Sockpuppetta, Sock Jedi.
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25 March 2002
Talli the Bot posted an article in #openacs about Cold fusion, an article in Science Magazine, and The Establishment trying to squelch it.
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Candy Evolution.
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Another from rzolf, qmail antispam measures, for those qmail junkies out there. Also, stuff about a Tagged Message Delivery Agent.
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24 March 2002
From rzolf, An interview with Gene Simmons.
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23 March 2002
Gillian Anderson's memories from X-Files.
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Another test from CrazyErin. Are you an AIM addict? I'm only 44% addicted. You don't want to how bad off CrazyErin is...
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Today is a very sad day. Hoover, my folk's cat, has passed away at the age of 17. She's been a family icon, and had more personality than many people I know. She'll be missed.
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22 March 2002
Here is The Page of worship for the Totally Artificial Beverage.
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The Russian moon rocket.
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19 March 2002
Greetings from the Big Nerd Ranch. Our internet access is limited (just a 56K modem for the group), and there's not any time for random surfing. Having tons of fun. More later.
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16 March 2002
Crazy Erin has found another personality test. Which Alice in Wonderland Character are you?. I'm Alice.
You're just a girl *cough*; you tend to get frustrated easily, you daydream quite a bit, and you try to avoid making trouble, though curiosity always gets the better of you. Even under tight circumstances, however, you put aside (some of) your fear and figure out what's the best thing to do. You want a better understanding of your world.
Pretty good.
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15 March 2002
I bet you've seen the "If you do XYZ, God Kills a Kitten" picture featuring Cliche' Kitten and the Furry Brick known as Domo-kun. (I have a Domo-kun as my AIM icon when I run mac os/9). Here's the Logical Response Image. Think of the Domo-kun! Here is a small Domokun page. Oh, and if you know where I can get a Domo-kun here in the states, please let me know. I think he'd be perfect next to my stuffed Bill The Cat.
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Woo hoo! Spring is here! Now I can go outside and sit in the shade and geek out do some work via the wireless network.
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I recently installed Mozilla 0.9.9 on the tibook (os/x), and I kinda like it. It's much faster than the other options. There are some things that are really bugging me about it to the point of dumping the program, and before I download the source and start whacking I figured I'd ask if anyone knows the solution.
- How do I turn off the "Search with Netscape!" menu that pops up when I'm tying an URL into the URL box. I have zero interest in using a search engine for what I type in there. I've hacked the preferneces.js to have the menu show nothing, but it still pops up. evand to the rescue. I had turned off the 'navbar autocomplete' since I find it amazingly annoying. The switch to turn off the search stuff is found under there.
- How do I move the 'Home' button to the top nav bar thingie? I use 'home' as the shortcut to adding a borklog entry. Right now I can either have Home all alone on the second nav bar thingie (thereby wasting a huge amount of valuable vertical real estate), or collapse it, which still wastes vertical space.
- Speaking of which, how do I completely remove entirely the second nav bar thingie? evand to the rescue again, View->show/hide personal navigation foolbar.
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10 Social Mores Questioned (briefly).What is next, the internet has expanded our lives, but has it made us more inclusive or more egocentric?
me me me me me!
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Woo hoo! Getting close to the day to leave for Big Nerd Ranch. I've been looking forward to this week of uninterrupted Mac OS/X programming goodness for quite a while now. I originally wanted to go in January, but the class got moved to MacWorld in SanFrancisco instead of at its usual place in Asheville, NC. The enviornment is almost as much of a draw as the material. The John Mac Oboe Camp is held near in the mountains near Asheville, an amazingly beautiful area, conducive to focused work and blocking out distractings.
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14 March 2002
Water on mars.
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It's 3/14. Happy Pi Day!
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Woo hoo! I passed my Oracle DBA cert "performance tuning" test (4th test out of 5). yay!
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Something for CrazyErin, Fark Photoshopping Episode II poster. Some are pretty crude. My favorites so far are Attack of the Clowns (might not render on all browsers), a different kind of romance, Attack of the Loompas, Attack of Dr. Evil's Clone (might not render), Attack of the Stones, and Jar-Jar is one lucky Gungin.
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From flutterby, Human VIrus Scanner, what memes have you been infected with. Slanted towards the techies out there.
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MonkeyAss posted this to #wplug, Amoebas are more than just blobs. Features *giant* amoebas.
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13 March 2002
Newsflash! People will Read an Article if it Mentions Britney Spears. I really need to get webalizer working again to see if this mention will garner additional traffic.
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Anyone remember that very striking picture of the green-eyed Afghan on the cover of National Geographic? They Found Her Again.
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Talli located the web page of the secret Pennsylvania Beaver County Militia, including reports on the dreaded Amish Pokemon, and OxyCotton, an Evil Plot to subvert the minds of the militia.
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I've been studying for an Oracle DBA test recently, and I was struck by a curiosity. In software "engineering" we're always taught to hide implementation details, to wrap implementation details behind an API so that we can change them if need be (or maybe to hide our own incompetence). The Oracle software exposes a huge number of implementation details. "buffer cache latches must cover at least 50 blocks", "there are at most 10 DBWn processes", "indexes are B trees with this structure". And yet Oracle is a very successful system.
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12 March 2002
I've changed the badgertronics IP addresses to their new addresses. There shouldn't be any noticable changes, but lemme know if you see anything odd. (well, ok, anything odd regarding my sites involving ip addresses. I'm sure you see odd stuff all the time)
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From Talli-me-bananna, when he wasn't putting his pants on some goats. New Response to Palestinian Terrorism.
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Muchos muchos thankos go to DocWolf for finding The Rappin' Duke for me in mp3 format. One of the truly stellar 80's Rap classics that hasn't garned its just appreciation (yet). Da-Ha.
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11 March 2002
A fiend of mine is having wrist pain from too much typing while under stress. I learned a couple of wrist stretching exercises from an Aikido nut back in the early 90s which have really helped me out.
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From gr-ed, French Intellectuals to be Posted to Afghanistan. This is only one of several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies to undermine the unswerving religious fanaticism that fuels the Taleban's fighting spirit. Pentagon sources have recently confirmed rumours that America has already sent in a 200-foot-tall robot Jesus, which roams the Taleban front lines glowing eerily and shooting flames out of its fingers while saying, 'I am the way, the truth and the life, follow me or die.' However, plans to have the giant Christ kick the crap out of a slightly effeminate 80-foot Mohammed in central Kabul were discarded as insensitive to Muslim allies.
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Wow. HI Monkey visits the Yahoo office.
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Six month anniversary of the destruction of the world trade center. Fark has reposted their comment board from that day. In it is an article that looks interesting, but I haven't read it yet. Jihad vs McWorld, and how we lose either way. I'm getting depressed now. That means it's time for Hi Monkey.
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New York Subway Ads, deconstructed.
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9 March 2002
Dubya drawing up plans to use nukes.
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8 March 2002
Rzolf was talking about a person named Snooky that ran his high school. That reminded me of George Fischer, the centeral Arkansas political cartoonist that hid 'Snooky' in his cartoons. It was a local obsession finding the hidden Snooky. Besides, "snooky" is a fun word. Snooky snooky snOOky.
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Wow. Leonard Nimoy is a photographer.
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Retrocrush has a bit on Job From Hell #1: restocking newspaper machines
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ffeJ rraB sent me a pointer to his Syndic8 content syndication service. Alas Borklog's code is a real quickie hack and isn't geard to
this kind of stuff, but it might be interested to folks interested in syndicating their weblogs.
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Another good find on Flutterby: Ever watch Blue's Clues? Looks like Steve the Human Cartoon is now doing weird stuff for adults. I think his site has the best use of mouse-over image changes.
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Two cartoon characters win student council election, votes thrown out on a technicality.
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What Matrix Character are you.. Whoa, I'm apparently Neo. You sometimes doubt yourself - who you are and what you can do. You're a curious person, with questions and concerns about the world. You go along with the crowd and aim to please others to your best ability. But when you finally discover what you're really capable of, you can do some serious ass kickin'! You're fast and furious, and you will always stick up for what you believe, and those who you care for. Not only that, but you're charming and charismatic, so you get along with people well, and others often look up to you.
Well, at least hte first couple of sentences are accurate. <voice inflection=ben-stein>I'm fast and furious</voice>
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7 March 2002
From Billings, What's wrong with this picture?. As Billings said, "Just sit and stare at it for a few minutes. It took me a while to figure it out."
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Docwolf on the ultimate (quiet) PC.
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E.T. makes a local call from Jupiter?, maybe not, but having a pulsing x-ray source in our backyard is kinda cool.
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My ego must be fed. Hence, I've written Some Book Reviews.
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From G-R/E-D via the onion, McDonald's Drops 'Mammurderer' Character From Advertising, and it goes downhill from there.
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6 March 2002
Bad Cheese Poetry, even features DougEDoug.
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Dig Dug deconstructed.
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The coming cirsis of American imperialism, or, how the Bush administration is the worst of all worlds.
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Write your name in, uh, cheese! on Patrick's Cheese-O-Matic!.
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5 March 2002
This gem from jo2y usually would go into the sick pile, but The Ass Morpher is such an awe-inspiring use of machine learning and high-powered algorithms. Only in America.
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4 March 2002
The Spark has a new test, The Lazy Test. I'm 42% lazy. *yawn* Time for a nap.
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We just got our girl scout cookies in. My favorite are the Thin Mints. They come in those handy single-serving sleeves...
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The Filthy Critic has the 2001 Filthies up.Many people who loved Lord of the Rings made an extra effort to tell me they weren't fanboys or fangirls. No, not yet, but this movie is a gateway drug. Within a couple years you'll be reenacting scenes with pewter figurines, drinking Mountain Dew and joiningyour friends' when they quote dialog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This movie is to fantasy what theWatch Tower is to Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Brief spot about The Daily Show. Story subjects don't realize they're being made fun of.
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3 March 2002
wwJSCd? Jin has come up with some TomCat best practices to help those trying to get up to speed with the Tomcat JSP thingie.
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Opinion Journal (from the WSJ editorial page) has an article on Why the Muslims Misjudged Us (They hate us because their culture is backward and corrupt). Behind that rather inflammatory headline is some insightful, well, insight, on the historic cultural differences between the West and the middle east / Ottoman cultures. Government spokesmen in the Middle East should ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific inquiry, unpopular expression and cultural exchange.
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Whoa. Nasa talks to Pioneer 10, only 7.4 billion miles away. If we can Do That, why is it so hard to get a decent internet connection here in Leechburg?
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From Fark-land, how long are all of the cheerios in a box?.
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2 March 2002
Davb found this handy CSS reference.
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A wplug member wrote an opionion piece over on sourcefnords, What Linux Needs Now?. (even though they left off the question mark), and it's not new features.
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Wheee haw! .net isn't really out yet, and already its second worm.
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1 March 2002
EvanD has outdone himself. The Little OS, a parody of a Chick Tract.
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Stream's Dad writes a little piece of praise. Here are some of Stream's pages on the car.
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Beware! Domokun's Terror on Campus!
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It's time to Mock Objects. No, not ridicule them. Just fake them, as a technique of unit testing. The site references the Law of Demeter often enough to cause me to remind myself what it means (objects only talk to their immediate friends)
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19 year old writes an editorial on why he thinks Islam sucks. Author apologizes (somewhat) after having his life threatened.
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Fark had a pointer to an article on the US Shadow Government, keeping a core set of bureucrats alive in case Washington gets nuked.
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28 February 2002
I usually find Aint It Cool News to be insufferable, but occasionally there's a good article, like this one on reading the Attack of the Clones Script. There may be hope for the prequel Star Wars franchise after all.
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Vinod reminded I needed to rant today before he heads off to New York to pick up bag ladies. We played our concert in Omaha on Sunday evening, and then started driving monday morning heading back to Pittsburgh (about 950 miles or so). After a pretty mild winter, this is also the time that the Weather Folks are predicting the Winter Storm of the Century of The Week. Just outside of Chicago it started snowing. And snowing. And snowing. Our goal of driving for the day was to get near South Whitley, IN so we could visit the Fox Products Corporation factory, who made my bassoon. We made it as far as Warsaw, IN before getting into complete white-out conditions. We found a Hamster Inn that had some rooms open. It turns out this hotel had the Midwest Eternal Flame. A gas log fireplace in the lobby. When we asked "how late is the fireplace open", Ryan, the desk clerk said that the fire has never been off since he's worked there (about two years). After a pleasant evening by the fire in the lobby (sharlotte with stitching, me with the Tibook describing how to do cocoa programming in mac os X without having to do your editing in Project Builder), we headed to South Whitley the next morning for the factory tour.
The factory tour was really neat. If you have a Fox oboe or bassoon, you should go visit the folks who made it. After that we headed towards Columbus OH. After hitting more snow, we decided to light in Whackamole, OH, where we discovered we were next to the Neil Armstrong Air And Space Museum. Which is a wonderful air and space museum! I'm not sure if I like it, or The air and space museum better. After that was an uneventful drive home. In the snow.
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From SeanY, Web economy *cough* phrase generator.
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Some lucky kid gets Free Curly Fries for Life. That's probably not too big of a loss for the Arby's franchise. The kid will probably need angioplasty at 16 and no longer be around at 20.
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Spotted on ex-ad, Real Rates, a survey of consulting rates that folks are charging.
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27 February 2002
Wheee! Back from the 2-week vacation out to Omaha to visit my folks. We saw some cool stuff on the way back (after getting stuck in the Indiana snowstorm monday night). More ranting tomorrow.
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23 February 2002
From CrazyErin, The Rocky Horror Personality Test. Looks like I'm Eddie.
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Given all the hullabaloo about the stacks of bodies at the crematorium, I figured a link to cremation.org would be apropos.
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21 February 2002
Yesterday we went out to get my Dad a new Mac. The IIfx he's been using finally gave up the ghost. It's been awhile since I shopped for a new Mac. The new flat-panel imac would have been perfect, but alas it's not in-stock in stores yet. Instead we got him an 800mhz tower (not the top of the line, but still pretty quick) and a 15" LCD display (beautiful). Being a programmer type, I tend to tweak my machines into annoyance, usually requiring some troubleshooting to get things to work correctly. With that in mind, I was shocked at how easy to set up this machine was. Hooked it up, plugged it in, started it up in OS/X. Installed Office vX and sQuickbooks.. Went and got an HP printer today, and everything Just Worked. No drivers to mess with, no configuration to dink around with. Even downloading AOL (via a cable modem) and then running it over the built in (analog) modem took nearly no time.
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Retrocrush has a nostalgia trip on Space Invaders.
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19 February 2002
A tidbit from Kebbin:
8:02 pm on February 20 this year will be an historic moment in time.
It will not be marked by the chiming of any clocks or the ringing of bells,
but at that precise time something will happen which has
not occurred for 1,001 years and will never happen again.
As the clock ticks over from 8.01pm on Wednesday, February 20, time will,
for sixty seconds only, read in perfect symmetry 2002,
2002, 2002, or to be more precise - 20:02, 20/02, 2002.
The last time there was such a symmetrical pattern was long before the days
of the digital watch and the 24-hour clock - at 10:01 am
on January 10, 1001. And because the clock only goes up to 23.59, it is
something that will never happen again.
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Greetings from beautiful(?) Omaha, Nebraska. I'll be out here for a while playing a concert with my folks (so not much random surfing time). In the MeanTime, rzolf sent me The Sysadmin Price List.
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14 February 2002
Dan posted on Flutterby this Spellcasting 101, don't try this at home, where our intrepid reporter attempts to recreate the magic in the Harry Potter and AD&D books. From the attempt at Charm Person:
My target, a female, appeared to have a counterspell of some sort, with a material component that looked like a small red can. The resulting gas cloud was both painful and blinding. My spell appears to have failed, but hers seems to have been very successful. I wonder what level she is?
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FaDuck comments about stupid people that act like sheep.
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HiMonkey celebrates Groundhog Day!. Cookies! Weather Forecasting!
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13 February 2002
Ham.
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12 February 2002
From #macdev on openprojects, FreeBSD Kernel-Scheduled Entities, includes an overview of different threading models.
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Some folks have been asking me "why haven't you written your own
history of arsdigita's decline and destruction?" I haven't seen much
point to writing yet another "this is my view" kind of document. I
don't crave the attention, I don't have an ego to feed, I don't have
an agenda to put forward. It was a start-up, and start-ups in the
early days are fun. Massive creation, wearing a lot of hats, making
new friends and sharing a lot of hard work. Eventually a great
majority wither and die. If I can make some new friends, learn some
new stuff, ask some questions, play with some new toys, make some
people happy, gather some new war stories, and save a little money, I
consider that a net win. I'm sad that arsdigita as an entity is no
more, and that some of my friends are out of a job or in limbo. The
same way I was sad when Visix passed beyond the veil. In the end, it
was Just A Company, bright with promise. Some people got rich, maybe
sacrificing their morals or reinforcing their delusions along the way.
Some people got screwed. Very sad. I just know I'm thankful for my
new friends. ArsDigita is gone. Time to move on.
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Apple has two Little "ads" made by Pixar involving the new Luxo jr. iMac.
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From billings, eediots.com, for when you want to tell someone that they are an idiot. For best results have your sound unmuted.
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Spotted on a Flutterby digest, AfterSlash, the unofficial SlashDot digest. It takes the top 5 highest rated comments and shows them. Also has some cool graphs of noise vs signal.
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The Talli and Vinod show on #openacs reminded me that I do have an agenda - that is showing the demise of aD from a pro-balloon balloon perspective. I'm pro balloons. Talli sums it up with " i think aD used a teddy bear twist when it should have just done a ballie and lock". Amen brotha'.
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11 February 2002
New writings from Gord!. Fresh chapters in the books of Annoyances, Chronicles, Justice, and Villany,
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While doing some research on the new stuff that rzolf & I are working on, I came across Snuff Puppets. Bizarre australian street puppetry. Also off of SnuffPuppets is another Borkware. (oddly enough the hair on the borkware dude looks like mine most of the time)
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I finally put up some mp3s of stuff I've played in. Check out my music page.
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an online dictionary of english slang.
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For the folks in Western PA / WV, Lydia highly recommends Mountain People's Market in Morgantown, WV, an organic market.
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From DavB, Visual Regexp. See what your regexps are doing with colored highlighting.
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9 February 2002
Lars also has a farewell to arsdigita document.
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Eve has a Diary of a Start-Up, her view of the arsDigita deBacle. There are some things I think that are spot-on (like the third paragraph), and some things that are off base . As rzolf pointed out, all of these aD (sometimes revisionst) history documents floating around never mention the folks that 1) actually did work and 2) people liked. Like Rolf, DougEDoug, Yon, Chunks, xux, BK, Docwolf, Sebastian, Fearless Leader, hughbacca, jbank, mbryzek, mayoff, mburke, paulK, Rmetcalf, BScheider, PaulH, Padmini, Janis, teadams, jkoontz, Jin, GregH, JBW, Chris & m0nk3y & Benis & Gina, Lin, CurtisG, Justin, Lydia, Beep...
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8 February 2002
From rzolf (when he's not being crucified in the FC forum linked below), LHPO, the Large, Hot, Pipe Organ. Industrial music at its finest.
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7 February 2002
Last night I went to my first gathering of NPMUG, the Northern Pittsburgh Mac Users Group. There were probably 40-50 folks at the meeting (a lot more than I would have expected). It's been awhile since I was immersed amongst the Mac Faithful, and it was a lot of fun. The store (MacOutfitters) that the meeting took place had gotten a new flat-screen imac that day. I think they're kind of cute. The screen mechansim is a work of art, and I'm impressed with the horizontal range of visibility of the LCD. Now if only the internal DVD burner could burn *data* DVDs in addition to video ones, I might have had an excuse to get one as a backup server. Oh well.
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arsdigita is dead. (another story) All but about 20 laid off, "assets" sold to RedHat (read the professional services organization). The speculation is that it's a face-saving manouver by the VC (to which RedHat is beholden) so they don't show arsdigita as a massive failure. Plus it gives RedHat a toehold (supposedly) into some clients that aD currently has contracts. Obligatory link to the crude FC bboard. What's amusing is that Dan Kenhian (the GreyLock stooge put in to shut the place down) didn't even have the guts to face the staff when they were all fired. Oh, looks like Slashdot finally picked up the story. Includes Philip's Infamous 'software engineering is like running nazi concentration camps' inspirational letter to the company.
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If you have telnet mojo, do telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl in a terminal window.
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Wow! You really can compare apples and oranges
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new issue of Troubleshooting Professional magazine, this time on Leadership (but really fundamentally about Quality) I like the list of Deming's 14 points (ya know, the TQM guy), and realize that what currently goes for TQM and "Quality Initiatives" in the Dilbert World has not much to do with the original ideas.
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5 February 2002
From DougEDoug, but must be shared here: "Enron shares" and "Aeron chairs" not only
sound alike but are both associated with
financial mismanagement.
Enron shares and Aeron chairs
doo-dah, doo-dah
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From Enna, All your candy are belong to us.
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4 February 2002
From the JMSlist, The Smirking Chimp, a slashdot-style site on various travesties happening in the dubya administration.
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F.A.Duck has a new blog. G check it out and send her some abuse.
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For some weird reason I'm feeling the itch to (re)learn trig and calculus. I found some random resources out there. an overview of trigonometry, Karl's Calculus Tutor, and a big list o' links.
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The world needs more great bus drivers like this.
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3 February 2002
From G-R/E.D, a brief interview with Dr. Watson, of DNA double-helix fame.
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2 February 2002
Another from Rzolf, Conumdrum Cycling, a very difficult to describe business. It sounds like bike nuts who travel from event to event, and since they're going to be at events anyway, might as well make some money pimpin' for da man. I like their style.
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Rzolf had a brilliant idea for the direction of a new venture we're working on. In the course of working on it, I came across the Apple ][ Lost Classics Project, including a boatloat of software by Beagle Bros (which looks like about the only working link or two there while they undergo construction). It's a cool idea - getting the owners of classic (and no longer viable business-wise) software to release their software for download for the folks living in nostalgia-land.
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1 February 2002
Oracle to run whole business on Linux.
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Memepool has a link to the Global Ideas Bank. Much of what's in there is pretty useless, but I like the Screen displaying a meeting's salray costs. Having been in my share of multi-hour meetings with a dozen folks, I would have loved to have that thing up and running.
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CurtisG pointed me to something really depressing. Is It Over Yet?. Alas, there's still 75% of the "presidency" left.
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Wired has a story on The new dual 1ghz G4 macs, and clustering software for Mac OS. It amuses me to no end to know that the fabled Mac ease-of-use sloshes over into scientific computing too. "There's a book called How to Build a
Better Beowulf that's 230 pages long
and tells you how to set up clusters
with Linux," Dauger said. "We have a
one-page manual (PDF) that shows you
how to do it on PowerMacs. We've had
high school students do it. We've had
junior high school students do it. We
even had a sixth grader in Hawaii do
it."
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31 January 2002
Rzolf is turning into Python-Man. Here are some notes of Python for Lisp Programmers.
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Rzolf pointed me to Woz.Org story of Woz's brush with the secret service.
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Retrocrush has a page of some really frightening halloween costumes.
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30 January 2002
From Chunks, Extreme Ironing
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I was browsing AppleLust and came across an article on writing by Rodney O. Lain (a.k.a. iBrotha), which led me to his site, ibrotha.com. Clear, amsuing, and informative writing. Plus he's a Mac geek.
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HiMonkey has the Valentine's Day Pages, including a guided tutorial on making cookies.
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Wow. Apple's AdvancedComputation Group has some pretty hardcore projects.
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29 January 2002
The Planetary Society has a survey up on what NASA should do over the next 10 years. I'm hoping they find life on Europa.
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From EvanD, Leader Kibo's WebTV page. A page, uh, optimized for WebTV (or maybe not). Be sure to have your speakers turned up, and the room lights off.
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28 January 2002
jo2y posted a link in #wplug to a Cool little commuter vehicle. It'd probably get swallowed by the first western PA pothole, but it's a neat idea. From their Dealer List, there's one in Sterling, VA. (my old stomping grounds before moving to PA). about 4 - 5 hours from here.
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27 January 2002
What *did* bring down Flight 93 on September 11?. Personally I beleive our military took it down. At the time it happened, the talk on the news was a possible 6 to 8 planes in bad-guy hands. With that kind of firepower possible, I can imagine (and understand) the shoot-down order being given and being carried out.
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Tutorial on doing tiled graphics for RPGs
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Need a saint, take a saint. Have a saint, leave a saint.
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Macedition has a cute parting shot for this week. Luxo Jr. Redux.
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26 January 2002
From Flutterby, Scientific American article on television addiction. I'm happy to say that I haven't regularly watched television in nearly two years. We don't have our TV hooked up to cable or an antenna (just for Babylon 5 tapes, and the occasional rented movie). The last time I felt compelled to spend time in front of the tube was September 11, for obvious reasons. Granted, I miss out on some social trends, like the latest goofy commercial, but I think I can live with that.
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Time for the 2001 Filthy Critic Readers' Choice Poll for 2001.
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From evanD, KDE User Interface Guidelines. It praises the macintosh and references Bruce Tognazzini, so it must be good.
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25 January 2002
Who needs guided missles when you have a faith based one instead.
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24 January 2002
Ex-Doors bandmate (Manzarek) reflects on life with Jim, basically a book plug. What's kind of interesting is that he's working on some 'official' Doors bootlegs.
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Mac OS X: Game Developer's Playground, A look at the Mac OS X development technologies and how they can
streamline game develpment for any platform. Includes first-person war
stories of actual use of the technology.
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There's a really good discussion going on, which is a spin-off of an entry about an Onion article about the athiest grad student and the black gospel choir.
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Another good one from Joel on Software, Rub a dub dub, don't rewrite, refactor. Take the big pile of stinking (yet working) code you have and massage it so that it's better. Don't lose business opportunity by starting from scratch. Too bad I can't send links like this back through time to aD of the past.
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22 January 2002
From the FarkFile, Top Five Most Questionable Star Trek Sites. Personally I beleive that Nimoy doesn't eat enough salsa.
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Bittersweets, by the Despair folks. For the folks who really loathe Hallmark Valentine's day.
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Denshi on #openacs pointed me to Paul Graham's site. I'm reading an article on Java's Cover, a critique of Java's "cover" (as in a judging a book by its cover). Includes 2. It's aimed low. In the original Java white paper, Gosling explicitly says Java was designed not to be too difficult for programmers used to C. It was designed to be another C++: C plus a few ideas taken from more advanced languages. Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for people not as smart as them
and
9. It's designed for large organizations. Large organizations have different aims from hackers. They want languages that are (believed to be) suitable for use by large teams of mediocre programmers-- languages with features that, like the speed limiters in U-Haul trucks, prevent fools from doing too much damage.
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Whoa. AOL Sues Microsoft over the netscape anti-trust thing. I love the picture they have there of BillG. "muahahahaha. I'm going to take over the world."
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21 January 2002
I love the local linux users group around here (wplug). Sometimes what happens on the mailing list is indescribable.
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A chat in #openacs reminded me of the classic Mac MPW C Error messages. These were real error messages (I got the "too many errors on one line (make fewer)" all too ofen)
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18 January 2002
Something for CrazyErin, Top 10 Least-Played D&D Classes.
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From rzolf, dot-com CEO works at McDonald's.
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From CrazyErin, Dancing Brak. Linked to that is the Hot Dog Dance. I'm not sure what those things are, but that page has the Torgo Theme.
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from jo2y on #wplug: Surprise Settlement Splits Microsoft.
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From G-R/E-D, A Quick Spin of the Wheel in Las Vegas featuring such insanity as
The flight itself was uneventful except when the man sitting next to me yanked off his prosthetic leg, waved it in the air and announced "Who needs legroom!"
and
"Lord of the Dance," at least the first 15 minutes, was absurd. I burst out laughing when a team of brawny, tap-dancing men in purple camouflage fatigues started flexing their muscles at one another, and I received dirty looks from nearby audience members who apparently did not share in my amusement.
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From Chunks, Gunnery Sgt R. Lee. Ermey 12" Motivational Figure. Alas the spousal unit's birthday was last sunday. As Chunks says, "there's always Easter!"
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17 January 2002
From davb/vinodster on #openacs, Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design.
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16 January 2002
Now this is a Diet Plan I could live with.
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Some of the chatter on #wplug this morning is about speculation around the MS replacement for the xbox, the homestation (might as well screw the early adopters early). HomerJ brought up the point that the HomeyStation will be microsoft's third console. Third you say? (that's what I said). Turns out that there was an MSX, a Z-80 based home computer / video console from 1983. How I could have missed that thing back in my Yoof, I dunno.
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From Chunks, a brief review of chocolate hob-nobs, one of the best reasons for keeping Britain around. If you want some, BRITS has them.
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denshi in #openacs pointed me to some Goats comic strips. I stumbled across this deliciously weird one. Denshi also pointed out that websites created by the comic are left around, such as Brains4Zombies, which probably has a better business model than most of aD's customers had...
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Billings found someone on the net who is dealing some great hash.
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Sunday Morning Coffee on the new iMac.
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15 January 2002
From homerj in #wplug, a fun game, Pennsylvania Driving Simulator.
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Since politics has already snuck in, here's one courtesy of DougEDoug, BoonDocks Thanksgiving Cartoon.
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Osama has the One Ring.
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From rzolf, Political corruption in the Dubya age. (NYTimes, free reg, blah blah blah)
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14 January 2002
DougEDoug recently got a new Kiddie Karrier. I'm amused by the name of the fabric. "Cowmooflage".
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Now I know way I shouldn't play computer games. I'm still finding Baldur's Gate (yeah, the older D&D game) to be a huge amount of fun, and I'm having to limit myself to playing it on the weekends, otherwise I'd get nothing done in my educational pursuits. I've been wandering around in "Chapter 2" for quite a long time, having explored and cleaned out most of the land that I could get to. I could never though find out how to move on to the next chapter. I finally broke down and read part of a walk-through (for some reason I can't find the link I actually used). Oh. If I had opened this particular chest after clearing out some mines a month ago, I would have moved on to the next chapter. d'oh. So down into the mines I trod again, open the chest, read the papers there, and *poof* the game goes on. and here's another walkthrough.
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Found on Flutterby, a list of links to opt-out of pop up/under advertising.
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Yet Another Personality Quiz, what pre-1985 video game character are you?. I'm "Mr Do." I am sedentary by nature, enjoying passive entertainment, eating when the mood takes me, and playing with my food. I try to avoid conflict, but when I'm angered, I can be a devil - if you force me to fight, I will crush you. With apples.
Which is pretty accurate. Time for food.
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It looks like South Carolina has done their homework on the purpose of the state lottery.
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DocWolf Watches a Shuttle Launch.
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11 January 2002
Another goodie from davb, Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python
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Oops! Too many doughnuts!
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10 January 2002
From davB, The Condiment Museum. I'm amazed at the thoroughness.
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Skateboarding snail is fastest way to commute in London.
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From DougEDoug (via RHF)I'm told that on Feb. 2, Dick Cheney will emerge from his bunker. If he sees his shadow, there will
be six more weeks of war in Afghanistan.
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9 January 2002
From the SheDork, Osama got run over by a reindeer.
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Microsoft tries to cheat on an online poll.
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8 January 2002
Dilbert on arsDigita.
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Found on fark, Demonology 101, a graphic-novel-esque mini-series about a teenage demon.
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From the emilod, Dull Men, the community site for Dull Men.
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How horrible! How can this be? No Orangutan Popcorn Fishwife?. We must have our Orangutan Popcorn Fishwife. (all your Orangutan popcorn are belong to Fishwife?)
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Also on BigEmpire, Post-It Theater, little animation on Post-It notes.
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BigEmpire has their Second Annual Best of the Millennium, including The Ten Best Movies about Cannibalism. Scary thing is I've seen half of them.
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7 January 2002
From Cheeser in #java, avemaria.mp3, by Shadowalk (a band out of Tulsa OK). OBTW, this is Ave Maria with a human beat box.
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from #openacs, What Languages Fix, describing programming languages in terms of what they're trying to fix.
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Beware! The Badger Cam may be watching you.
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Snow! We got snow! And we took pictures!
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6 January 2002
another good one from Joel on Software. Fire And Motion. I know I have gotten (and still get) into those code-funks, where the entire work day is nothing but AIM, IRC, and hitting reload on slashdot and Fark. And it's not every software essay that includes the phrase "When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. "
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Rzolf found another personality test, Ansir.com - a new style in relating. I scored:
- Dominant Thinking Style : Diligent
- Dominant Working Style: Empath
- Dominant Emoting Style: Diligent
The associated blurbage was pretty accurate.
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5 January 2002
From g-r/e-d, Atari proposes Special Ops Equipment. Pookas in turbans. bwa-ha-ha-ha.
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A tale of great customer service. I had ordered a DevTools CD from Apple's Developer Connection, and was confused by their web site's results after they took my credit card info. I filled in their "have a question?" form, expecting it to go into the same black hole that Sun uses for their questions (I found a problem in the Geary AWT book, and the author apparently doesn't have an email address, nor is there errata on the net). So, I sent the question using apple's form, and about an hour later I got a phone call (yes, a telephone call from an actual person. I wish I could remember his name now) and all my questions answered. Pretty cool support for a self-identified "hobbyist" who just bought a $20 tools CD.
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Once again, Porruka has a cogent perspective on the whole Apple / MacWorld / Mac Market thing. Outlining pretty much what apple's market is, and what the next logical step should be.
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4 January 2002
From m0nk3y, Smurf Name Generator.
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Looks like some aD management looking for a new job.
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3 January 2002
SheDork sent me a list of late-night show blurbs about BinLaden.
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Yet another quiz, Erik's quiz.
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Apple is cranking up the Hype Machine for MacWorld SanFrancisco next week. "Beyond the rumor sites. way beyond" and "like a backstage pass to the future". Speculation is a flat-screen imac is coming out (which is hardly worthy of the hype). From g-r/e-d, SpyMac, which has pictures and video of "iWalk", a newtonesque PDA kind of thing. It'd be cool if this were it. Interestingly enough, iwalk.com does not send you to apple.com, like ipod.com. iwalk.com reminds g-r/e-d about National Lampoon's Deteriorata.
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From flutterby, ColorGenics, psychological profiling based on color choices. The readings I tried weren't terribly accurate, but kind of a cool idea.
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From SeanY: a replacement for WebVan has arrived, WebPinto
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2 January 2002
From davb, an article from the author of vim, the vi clone, with some interesting commentary on open source, and a high-level overview of some of the vim data structures.
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Holy Numerology batman! 2002 lottery number drawing is 2002.
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Candy from the 80's, with commercial downloads (which I didn't do due to my lame home internet connection). Lots of great food memories from my kiddiehood. In describing Bonkers: It's my belief that a grape Bonker was made from 95% alien grape extract, with the remaining 5% going to straight lemon juice. These things were more powerful than those Warheads candies, the ones that prided themselves on being too strong to actually eat. (pretty self-defeated promotion for a food, but whatcha gonna do?)
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Rzolf's doing some python playing these days, and he's found a cool servertoolkit at Twisted Matrix. Includes, http, ftp, ldap, and a built-in MUD (!).
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must... catch up... on... surfing... An Interview with Matthew Dillon, FreeBSD kernel dude. I like his approach to software quality (assertions, yeah baby), and the interview has some description of some FreeBSD kernel internals (unified buffer cache) and an interesting discussion about the hell that is NFS.
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From Billings, Happy perihelion! Today we are only 147 million km from the Sun.
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28 December 2001
Heading up to Punxsatawne for the new year's weekend. (It's our weekend to take care of the groundhog), there's no net access up there, so there will be a lack of new entries for my my regular readers. Wheee.
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A good xmoose present from Joel on Software: Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt. Scary thing is I've used a number of those techniques in the past.
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Help! I've fallen back into Baldur's Gate (the old D&D-style RPG from many moons ago). It's got the right mix of Myth and Seven Cities of Gold (anyone remember that?) to make me burn insane amounts of time.
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25 December 2001
From aaron on #java, Wires!. There are a lot of crazy images there, like Words, Don't be a coding commie, a cool elephant, and a depressing World at Night.
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Beware! Hard Core Geek Humor, including Fox in WinSocks, Definitions of Managed Objects for Drip-Type Heated Beverage
Hardware Devices using SMIv2, and the 12 days of Technology before Christmas (oddly apropos).
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24 December 2001
Found over in CrazyErinVille, What Personality Disorder are you?, or, Am I ParanoidSchizoid Or Not? Looks like I scored "low" on everything. Guess I didn't click the "no" button for obsessive / compuslive behavior often enough. 4Degreez also has a Famous Person Recognition quiz. I'm shocked more folks don't recognize the name Tom Servo.
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From Flutterby, We Must Attack France!
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Stolen from Flutterby, Mouse Planet Potties, someone fixated enough (apparently) to catalog and rate all of the bathrooms in the Disney empire.
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Furry kissmoose from western PA. This area takes its Christmas holiday seriously. It's 10:00 on Christmas eve. The pizza places are closed. The grocery store is closed. Both 24-hour convenience stores near here are dark.
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23 December 2001
Found on Fark, in their words RPG of a Mid-30's Arkansas Redneck (although it seems to take place in Boston). Juan better stay away from it in any case.
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22 December 2001
From Fark, Mysterious Snacks of the Far East.
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Rzolf tells me to behold the Mighty and Noble Panda
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21 December 2001
From bit-poet on #java, The D Programming Language, yet another attempt of bringing C / C++ into the 1990s.
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I have no idea where G-R/E.D. gets these, but here's another. Water Beds for Cows. Moooooo.
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Merry Winter Solstice. Time to take those friutcakes lying around the house and build a Stonehenge replica.
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20 December 2001
Looking at my access logs, I noticed a visitor from Ajeeb.com, which looks like a pretty cool Islamic portal. I like arab news sites since they provide counterpoint to the traditionally biased US media sources (not that they don't have their own biases. Humans are human after all). They have Games, weather, horoscopes, and Prayer Times. Alas Pittsburgh is not on the list of cities.
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The Filthy Critic has posted the conclusion to his A God Damn Love Story, and yes while it's not great literature, I'd rather see it in film than much of the dreck that's out there these days.
He also has a link to 20 second reviews, movie reviews based on trailers.
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Rzolf pointed me to the bizarre, yet cool, Google Catalogs. Scan and OCR catalog, use google's text search to find stuff, then have folks look at the catalog page and phone in their order. It is kinda cool when you do a keyword search - it'll show the page, plus the area of the page enlarged with your keywords.
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Cool. WTC fires finally out.
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19 December 2001
I just got one of those "yearly wrap-ups" in the Christmas card thing that's becoming all the rage (and I truly enjoy them from folks I know) from my Uncle and family who are Mormon. I know some mormans and like them, there's just something about the whole church which makes me uneasy, similar to the way Scientology makes me uneasy. The Funny Underwear That Can't Be Shown, the Coveting Converting of the Ancestors, the "Family is our Prioirty" but only if the family is mormon (a non-mormon father cannot witness his daughter's marriage if she gets married in the tabernacle. Doesn't sound family friendly to me.) As always, Jack Chick has an opinion.
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18 December 2001
From #java on openprojects, "java.lang.DumbAssException: Programmer sucks".
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rzolf has crawled out of the woodwork and passed along some notes from the guy who made the yahoo store.
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NY Times has a Saffire essay on Dubya Seizing Dictatorial Power.
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17 December 2001
From a link on Fark, Top Secret Recipes, clones of name-brand foods.
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Crazy Erin reminded that HiMonkey is alive and well. I missed the 'name the puppy contest' (the winner was Heidi. Don't grimace too much DougEDoug). HiMonkey is also cooking again. Fruitcake!
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16 December 2001
From jo2y, Squonk Opera, described as Debussy meets Godzilla.
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15 December 2001
From jo2y, The Tao of Backup, including The Wailing Wall, which will make you paranoid.
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13 December 2001
Woot! Passed my oracle 8i dba 'backup and recovery' certification test (53 out of 60, ~88%). 3 tests down, 2 to go.
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12 December 2001
From monkeyass, A New Kind of Science from Wolfram, the Mathmatica dude.
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Now that i'm unemployed for awhile, maybe it's time to write some games. I don't recall where I found this, but Physics for Game Developers looks pretty cool.
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MHT - Megway Human Transport, the future of transportation.
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Another Joel on Software, this time Back to basics. C strings, why C strings and the standard C library sucks, but why that should be taught to young programmers anyway. This is why my view of teaching is that first year CS students need to start at the basics, using C and building their way up from the CPU. I am actually physically disgusted that so many computer science programs think that Java is a good introductory language, because it's "easy" and you don't get confused with all that boring string/malloc stuff but you can learn cool OOP stuff which will make your big programs ever so modular. This is a pedagogical disaster waiting to happen.
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11 December 2001
Learn to play the Kazoo like a pro. Don't have a kazoo? You can get them singly, or by the dozens.
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From davb in #openacs, Crazy Apple Rumors Site. "Crazy Apple Rumors Site is
dedicated to the fabrication of
Apple rumors that defy
verifiability, grammatical
convention or any basis in
reality." Even with that disclaimer, the spelling and grammar are better than slashdot's.
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10 December 2001
John Ashcroft is the next McCarthy. Can you tell them apart?.
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Every time I ponder about going back to school full time, I'm reminded why I don't want to do that. Sporkie-boy in #openacs (and some older friends of mine who are returning to college to complete various degrees) frequently complains about the nonsense classes he's having to take to fulfil random requirements. I'm also studying for my third (out of 5) Oracle DBA Certification exams (Backup and Recovery). There's a huge amount of random information and procedures (which feels much worse than the other two tests I've taken so far) "slog" is a good term for what I'm doing. Luckily most of the material is interesting, but the uninteresting parts are very tough to wade through. I can't imagine having to sit through, study for (and pay for!) whole classes that are like that.
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9 December 2001
From Wallace and aeGrumet, a Tivo Webserver.
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8 December 2001
The damaging effects of Traditional Children's Songs. Personally I think all youngun's should be raised on a balanced diet of Mozart and Marilyn Manson.
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Something for DougEDoug, Juggle Mania
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From evand: "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." --Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
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7 December 2001
Random Steven Wright Joke. My favorite is I was going 70 miles an hour and got stopped by a cop who said, "Do you know the speed
limit is 55 miles per hour?" "Yes, officer, but I wasn't going to be out that long..."
oh, and another one When I was a baby, I kept a diary. Recently, I was rereading
it. It said, "Day 1 -- Still tired from the move. Day 2 --
Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot."
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Take the Art Test. I'm Escher's Lizards.
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From Fark, Ultrasound + mirrors = human flashlight - allowing ultrasound displays to appear as if they were part of the person they're imaging. They could make a mint selling this to amusement parks and science museums. "let's look and see what little Timmy really ate!"
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Found on memepool, Why you don't want to drink peroxide. (by Lara St. John, concert violinist)
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The Underdogs, a huge collection of old classic computer games, all of which are available for download.
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6 December 2001
Wish I had found this back in my bachelor days. The Art Of Laze Cookbook, including some Dr. Pepper Recipies.
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5 December 2001
RageMax pointed out a Pretty Wicked Magnet. What's truly amusing are the Different uses folks use the magnets for.
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One of the denizens of #openacs is contemplating getting "extremecode.com". He's a college student that does tcl and java. NASA does truly extreme code. It's interested to compare this article (which talks about the mature, documentation-heavy development process used for the shuttle software) with the Linus Torvalds / Linux thingie from yesterday. They're both valid approaches to software development. One statement from the NASA article Most
organizations launch into even big projects without planning what the
software must do in blueprint-like detail. So after coders have already
started writing a program, the customer is busily changing its design.
which in one sense (conveyed by the article) this is a Bad Thing - that fully designing from the outset is the key to a mature software development process. It can also be a Good Thing (as espoused by the Extreme Programming crew). For some software, you can't know enough about the problem to be solved to fully design it before-hand. e.g. something that is used in a rapidly changing business market (say ebay's interface and infrastructure) vs something with relatively static and very well-defined boundaries (the space shuttle software).
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A gem from memepool. Asteroid Hopper. A music video that's like a live action video game (which matches the music style, kind of a retro atari effect. Imagine Squirrel Nut Zippers meets PitFall. Actually, don't imagine that) Aside from that, the music is pretty cool. The artist's home page is at DesertPlanet.
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The Filthy Critic writes a a love story. It's about what you'd expect from Filthy, but it actually is more interesting and truer to life than most Hollywood dreck.
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One of the more bizarre concepts I've thought about, What kind of online personality test are you.
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This is very weird. It's December in western Pennsylvania. Last year at this time collective butt-freezing was occurring. This year, it's 75 degrees and we have our windows open.
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Found on Fark, Bin Laden feared to have Segway Scooter, as well as "Manos", The Hands of Fate personality test. It says I am The Master personality, but I tend to identify more with Torgo.
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4 December 2001
WTC still burning.
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Out on Kerneltrap, an interesting thread on Evolution of software sytems, with lots of commentary by Linus Torvalds. I like a comment from Allen Cox: That assumes computer science is a functional engineering discipline. It's
not, at best we are at the alchemy stage of progression. You put two things
together it goes bang and you try to work out why.
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3 December 2001
DougEDoug infected me with this email virus. Now it's your turn.VARNING: MinnySota Computir Virus
Ve haf just sent you da "NORVEGIAN VIRUS". Since ve do
not haf any programming experience and do not know how to actually
damage your computer, dis Virus verks on da honor system.
Please forward dis Virus to eferyvone on your mailing
list and den manually delete all of da files on your hard drive.
Tank you for your cooperation.
Sven and Ole
MinnySota Viking Fans
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From Billings, Is your son a computer hacker?. Looks like I might have been. Shot me now.
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cool! jo2y goes to legoland.
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2 December 2001
I've got an ipod now. Yay! it looks really really cool. It's DOA. Bummer. Now to figure out if I can get if fixed locally before sending it back.
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1 December 2001
Yesterday was the last day of the first of my life. Now I'm unemployeed, no longer needed by the juggernaut (cough) that is arsDigita. My immeidate plans are to take a couple of months off to work on resume skills ('cause right now, my resume is pretty weak, unless I want to get back into dot-com stuff, which I've had enough of for now), and generally ponder what I want to do if I grow up.
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Badgertronics is now in its New Home, in the new machine room of Digital-Mission. There were a number of us - mdz, soon-to-be-mrs mdz, MonkeyAss, Tim, Mike, some weirdo that hates trombones, brooks, and a daddy with a cute little kid in tow. It took two trips to to move all of the machines, and MonkeyAss got to pilot the big sky-crane to lift machines (and apparently refrigerators the day before) up to the third floor.
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30 November 2001
Wee-haw, my last day at arsDigita. We celebrated by taking cars down to Leechburg (Sharz so it can get the state inspection, mine because Smail Acrua - amongst other screw-ups, didn't put the tail pipe hanger back on, so the pipes bent and damaged the muffler). And I'm going to continue the celebration by heading out early and going to Pittsburgh to move badgertronics to its new digs.
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29 November 2001
Early 2000s, when the bush adminstriation turns the US into A police state.
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From davb on #openacs, how to make eat oatmeal.
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An Alternate Reality - Afghan war as spectator sports, large corporations get large chunks of cash. Nothing to look at here. Move along and do your patriotic duty and shop.
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Quote of the day from Flutterby (not often I get caught completely off-guard by a comment)
Dwarf sues to overturn Florida
anti-"Dwarf Tossing" law. Frankly,
I'm glad to see that we're keeping
people from being exploited for
their physical differences and
protecting them from the lure of
being paid for dangerous and
demeaning activities. In other news,
I can't wait for the Winter
Olympics.
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Proof that Disney is evil and is set on destroying family values.
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28 November 2001
Now that Dan's back from vacation, I can resume stealing shamlessly from Flutterby. Extreme Barriers To Enty, how to kill a community to make it stronger. A page referenced from that Dreamless.org (still online as of this writing) is wonderfully artsy-weird. Also on the DesignForCommunity site is an essay Technological Solutions for encouraging Netiquette.
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From jo2y, Captcha, or Am I Robot Or Not. According to the "Bongo" test, I'm about half-robot.
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A quick note that (hooked on) badgerphonics will be down friday from about 5pm til midnight (or later). Digital-Mission (the good folks that host my machine) are moving to new digs, and that's the mass-movement of machines.
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Dictionaroke (the Singing Dictionary), music "sung" by the voices from online dictionary pronounciation utilities. I'm currently enjoying Bohemian Rhapsody.
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27 November 2001
I've been seriously enjoying the music of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, retro-30's "Hot" Jazz, with lyrics and sensibilities planted firmly in the cynical 90s and 00s. I've found a nice paper on how their Hot Jazz style relates to Swing; and a feature on The old-time art of Squirrel Nut Zippers their
audience ranges in age from 17-year-olds to septagenarians.
Younger crowds even dress the role in three-piece suits, fedoras
and evening gowns, dancing gracefully to the Zippers' infectious,
swinging sounds. It's almost enough to strike five years of torn
flannel and mosh pits from the collective memory.
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I mentioned earlier that I had my first trombone lesson in 20 years last friday. Jackson (my teacher) pointed out two really really bad habits I had. One of which has kept me from having any kind of high range, the other which was screwing up my low range (which coincedentally were the two areas I've been having a lot of problems with. go figure). He showed me the proper emboucher (the way you hold the muscles in your face as you play) and gave me a bunch of exercises to work on. Tonight was the first rehearsal I've had since my lesson (a Kiski Valley Community Band rehearsal). After an evening with that group.my face usually hurts, like I've been flogged with a large marmot (that's because I play lead trombone when I prefer to play the third parts, and that group plays super-sharp, which is hard to maintain). After tonight (unsing the new emboucher) I felt tired, but not in pain. woo hoo! There may be hope for me yet.
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Where the name Squirrel Nut Zippers comes from. Beware that this page auto-redirects to another page shortly after loading, so be quick on the 'stop' button. Or else once it redirects, choose the third picture down on the left-side frame. Since this lame site uses #*(!! frames, I can't give you the page directly so that it'll work.
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26 November 2001
From CurtisG, WTO, World Toilet Organization. Someone with entirely too much time on his hands, apparently.
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Found over at Cowlix, Learning from Isreal and Its Mistakes. Restrictions on civil liberties does not make a
country more safe.
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Found on Mike's weblog, Misfortune Cookies.
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Sick and Demented christmas toys.
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25 November 2001
Latest Sunday Morning Coffee features the premiere of BlogBoy. Current mood: berzerk.
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24 November 2001
The Chilluns of the 70s probably remember the Mattel Electronic hand-held games from that era. Apparently They're Back to cash in on the nostalgia market. x-entertainment includes some reader contributed dedications to the platform.
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23 November 2001
Cool! Bush has been in office for not quite 12 months, and we're Back to Federal Deficits
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Rzolf sent this - SweetCode, open source software that's new and interesting, not just another rehash of something that's already been written. (for fun, you should browse FreshMeat, and look at the number of lame me-too projects. Do we really need another X window manager?). Rzolf found it from Need To Know newsletter.
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From Eeeeeena, Bad Astronomy, debunking Bad Science you see on TV. I found the Nasa faked the moon landing denbunkage very interesting, as well as taking on The Hme Shopping Network and the new Star Trek.
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22 November 2001
Seig Heil! FBI having problems reading all of our email, creates computer virus to log keystrokes. Wonder how long until this starts getting pointed at thought criminals. Makes me so glad I don't use windows.
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I found A Heart Made Of Glass, a Self-indulgant yet intersting comic by the same guy that does Sexy Losers (beware that sexylosers is really raunchy), but AHMOG is suprisingly low-key and introspective.
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Merry American Gluttony Day to all. Don't forget that tomorrow is National Buy Nothing Day. I'm going to be celebrating by driving to West Virginia for my first trombone lesson in 20 years (alas I'll be buying a lesson, fuel, and some bbq subs at the SubWay in Morgantown. We can't get them up here in the culinary wasteland. But I will be avoiding all traditional Christmas Consumption Season locations), and then getting frozen playing an outdoor tree-lighting ceremony up here.
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We went over to DavenSues place for Thanksgiving gluttony. Todd had a home-smoked turkey (quite good), and we had our first Fried Turkey (yep, deep-dried turkey). Kebbin has a turey fryer, and the 5 gallons of peanut oil necessary. As folks have told me, it wasn't greasy - actually it was quite sweet. The texture of the dead flesh was a little odd (almost watery), but tasty. I have also learned more Navy jargon today than I think I want to know.
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21 November 2001
Another Flash arcade game. Chicken Wings are not made for flying. Pleasant pastel images, umbrellas, and small chickens.
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Got too many old AOL CDs around the house? Make a festive wreath out of them. Mothra Stewart would call this a Good Thing.
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Found on BackupBrain, Yield: 4 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 9 hours
Difficulty: Easy
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Brak-mania seems to be sweeping the nation, or at least my small circle of friends. CrazyErin had this in her AIM away message: "Hey-lo! My mane is Bingo. I like to climb on things. Can I have a banana? Eek eek." Which I of course Informed m0nk3y about, given the Raging Debate over whether the Dog or the Farmer is Bingo (it's the Dog, dammit). Maybe it actaully is a monkey. M0nk3y said "that's a Brak quote. Here's a clip." Whoa. One of my favorite songs is the closing credits from Cartoon Planet, and m0nk3y came through with the theme.
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If you're driving around my place in Western PA, be careful! Accident #2 happened this morning out front. Schoolbus was stopped picking up sprogs, with a line of 3 or 4 cars behind it. A car stopped, a minivan going full-tilt didn't. Right now there's three ambulances and a police cruiser across the street.
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20 November 2001
From Rzolf and DocWolf, OddTodd. The flashimation gives me something to strive for once my countdown is over.
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From Billings, nslookup ccvi.ccxxiii.xxxvi.lv
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Can a man being in Home Depot for 16 hours, straight and maintain his sanity? I'm not sure he did.
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The filthy Critic takes on Harry Potter (so be prepared for some crudeness). Since I've been unemployed, I don't hardly go out,
and the longer I stay indoors, the harder it is to face the harsh light of
reality, and only my fantasies keep me sane. Only my pirate adventures
using sofa cushions, my ventriloquism with the dog and the radio
receiver I am building out of lettuce keep me from wigging out. It's the
power of fantasy.
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Someting for CrazyErin: legos acting out part of The Holy Grail
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19 November 2001
From rzolf, The Scratchware Manifesto, about taking game development away from The Corporate Machine and Returning It To The PEoPLe!!!!!1!!!!!
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Chatting with G-R/E.D, we started talking about haggis and deep fried mars bars, especially apropos since we're going to friend's for fried turkey (!) on thursday.
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More from the RatherGood crew, a quickie flashimation of the Graphic Deconstruction of Selected Beatles' Lyrics. Whether he's making an ass out of himself, or just fowl play, I'll let you decide. Also at RatherGood, Monkey Invaders, a surprisingly fun arcadish game.
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Boosh sent me this in an IM unintentionally:k:-)
That looks like an emoticon for the oh my god, there's an axe in my head folks.
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18 November 2001
Lego Firearms.
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17 November 2001
From k2pts on #openacs, The last time I saw Bin Laden. We've
never been particularly close, mostly because of the religious
differences (he's an Extreme Fundamentalist Muslim, whereas I
think women are human beings). But still, he calls me every
time he's in town, we hang.
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We went to see hairy potheads Harry Potter last night. We sat through bladder-busting 2.5 hours (we weren't quite as ready to explode like after seeing Titanic, but were close). Surprisingly, I really liked the movie. Most movies centered around Young Children usually drive me bonkers. British child actors though tend to be much more enjoyable to watch than American child actors. As an aside, I like the Babylon 5 approach to Cute Children in TV shows - if you see a Cute Child, some horrible fate will usually befall them. Anyway, the HP movie kept very close to the book story-wise, and the visual effects were spectacular. I'd imagine having read the book would be a pre-requisite, lest you get confused at some parts of the story . (although it's no where near as bad as the original Dune movie was)
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16 November 2001
From rzolf, More pictures of the bunny rabbit with stuff on its head. There's also an english page that gives some insight: When I put various objects on his head, he stays still for a minute.
This is just a result of an intimate relationship between me and Oolong.
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The Ramen Home Page, about the favorite college cheap/easy "nourishment" "treat". I haven't priced it these days, but the Piggly Wiggly in Conway used to have sales of 6 for a dollar. The stuff gave me such horrible indigestion that I never really became a Ramen junkie like some of my friends. Addendum:, from Rzolfthat ramen link is a bit americanized. in japan, you can buy those
cheap ass instant ramens, but they will give you indigestion just like
the US versions. however, in japan, ramen is a huge deal...there are
ramen shops everywhere, and the ramen is really good. there are
thousands of varieties...but the post popular are probably
1. "shoyu" ramen ... shoyu == soy sauce, it is a soup with a soy sauce flavor
2. "tonkatsu" ramen ... tonkatsu is pork cutlet
3. miso ramen .. ramen in miso soup.
at the shops, most of the ramen is homemade in the shop.
just this weekend i was watchingn a TV show where 4 comedians were
in a contest to see if they could eat 50 bowls of ramen in
one weekend...it was pretty funny.
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From Chunks, Yahoo Crime Blotter, including a man smuggling birds in his Pants, and an assault on the Cookie Monster.
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15 November 2001
I'm not a big gamer, and the Xbox leaves me pretty unimpressed. I'm including This review from Salon just so I can quote this: Meanwhile, another GameCube-only title boasts the killer app of franchises. Star Wars Rogue
Leader: Rogue Squadron II puts you in a picture-perfect re-creation of the aerial and space action
scenes from the Lucas films, with a verisimilitude that makes them almost indistinguishable from
the actual films. (In the Hoth level, you even get to entangle AT-ATs with your snowspeeder's
tow cable.) Unfortunately, the missions are broken up in jarring, discontinuous chunks; you feel
as if you're being hustled along a kind of "Star Wars" stations of the cross.
Also linked are some European adverts for the PS2 by David Lynch.
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14 November 2001
Good Lord. I wonder if I can move to New Zealand now. The factoid "The Rocky and Rambo series have grossed more than $2 billion" is also very disturbing.
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THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! RUN!!!!!! requires free registration
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From jo2y, NotAnotherTeenMovie.com, your source for books about kissing is weird. The animations are most disturbing.
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Found in a slashdot interview, Lisp vs C++/Java.
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13 November 2001
I stumbled across this yesterday while investigating another Java topic. java assembly language. It's a deliciously sick idea. Portable speed-freaking.
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12 November 2001
Euphemisms used in personal ads
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From Rzolf-to-the-izzah, Sun Brothers, scupltors that turn metal into plants.
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arsDigita/Berkeley gets dismantled
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From billings, Symphony for Dominatrix Dot-matrix printers.
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For the unattached shy guys around, How 2 Meet Women, a guide to dating from a geek.
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11 November 2001
Ooops - where did Lake Peigneur go?
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From davb in #openacs, What is the Fibonacci Series, anyway?. Flashimation.
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10 November 2001
From davb in #openacs, How non-programmers use documentation.
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Woot! Day of the Blode, Episode III
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9 November 2001
From rzolf, in The Iranian, an opinion piece on Afghanistan (pre-bombing), which is a pretty depressing description of the day to day life there, living with land mines, and all that fun stuff. I heard on Iranian radio that Madame Ogata gave the number of
Afghans dying of hunger to be a million nationwide.
I reached the conclusion that the statue of Buddha was not demolished by
anybody; it crumbled out of shame. Out of shame for the world's ignorance
towards Afghanistan. It broke down knowing its greatness didn't do any good.
Then again, the subsequent descriptions of the tribal violence makes the standard of living there not too surprising. Almost makes the serbo-croat thing look a lover's tiff.
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Quite apropos to the region I've found myself living in How to speak Pittsburghese. I haven't found yet the real grammatical horror of this area. The future infinitive form (I think) gets mangled. It's not "This car needs washing" or "This car needs to be washed", it's "This car needs washed". UGH.
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8 November 2001
From Billings, RedHat support Red Hat 7.1 registration image. Maximal Slack, man. In college I knew someone (were are you Jesse?) who know the Reverand Buck Naked. I'm just two BaconPoints away from greatnes!
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From Rzolf, the proposa for Spirited Away, a Japanese animated movie. Some cool stuff in there that you won't find in stuff like The Lion King. It is also the reason why we make a fantasy that takes place in Japan.
Even though it is a fairytale, I do not want make it a Western one in which
we can find many ways out.
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From Billings, IQTest.com. What's amusing are the banner ads in the test. "I guess smart people like their porn" was the refrain in #wplug. Be sure to give a valid email address. I got mailed my score, but couldn't figure out how to get my score on-line without paying for it. (maybe I failed the test afterall, hmm....).
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From DougEDoug, an article in the Vashington Pohst. Airline Security Should Let Music Go First Class. Lemme have an amen!
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New month, new issue of Troubleshooing Professional. This time it's a depressing look at the SSSCA and the power it turns over to microsoft.
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Flashimation, The MAME Song. I didn't know Ms. Pac Man had such a voice.
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Today must be rzolf day. Here's a pretty crude (Cute Animals, poking fun at Sanario-style cute creatures) page, but it does feature a comment from rzolf, posing as a pan-pacific import/export business owner.
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SeeMen, a performace art group that plays with robots and fire. rzolf saw them in NY. i saw those guys in brooklyn.
it was really surreal, because it was an impromptu event
they just brought the robots into this puerto rican body-shop yard
that was in a chain link fence, on a block by my apartment
so i was walking home around midnight
and there were these flamethrowers
and
all these puerto rican kids, and white dotcom hipsters, and old polish people
pressed up against the fence
all shouting "yeah!!!"
when the robot blew fire.
it was...
extremely
weird
scene
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Rzolf pointed out the Dilberito company. Judging from one of their products (BBQ Burrito), it looks pretty good. Vegetarian, no bizarre ingredients. Unfortunately I looked at the Sodium content. Ooof!
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In the DNRC newsletter, Plop, a Dilbert spin-off cartoon. I think I'd rather read User Friendly (which I loathe) or Chick tracts.
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7 November 2001
Living in the land of Heinz, I was delighted to come across Planet Ketchup. Alas it hasn't been updated in a year, and it uses frames, but outside of that, a Significant Ketchup Resource.
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From kuro5hin, a treatise on rejecting the commercialism of Christmas. In many ways I must agree. It gets more and more depressing seeing the Christmas Shopping Season come earlier in the year. I like what CrazyErin and family do - bake a cake and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus; along with the joy of expressing what's an important part of their lives. That's so much nicer than office parties and societal encouraged consumption.
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Some Monster's Inc stuff stolen from comments over at Flutterby. Culture Shock of young Somali children going to see it. Plus Landover Baptist chimes in with its opinion. I'm just hoping the Filthy Critic reviews Monsters Inc. That would be really interesting.
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CurtisG sent me the Dismal Scientist Layoff calculator. According to that I have a 1.8% chance of being laid off before the end of 2001. That makes me 98th percentile! woo hoo!
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From rzolf, Helicopter Private License program. The commercial program has some uber-leet stuff in it. Luckily I'm 4-F in the eyes department, and I don't particularly want to spend any time in Florida.
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6 November 2001
Spotted on a *really* sucky joke on rec.humor.funny, in Scientific American some Tales of Stupid People
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From #java on irc.openprojects.net, some old Java Techniques Articles, some Java programming techniques (duh...) articles from Java World magazine.
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From Vinod, [Programming by] Contracts Reading List. Beware, lots of PDFs.
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I love the OpenACS guys. Here they are planning a social when Vinod and Talli start digging up the past. And believe you me, "Dr."
Kurup, that picture will be posted on the InterWeb before you can say, "Nurse, I
need another spong[e] bath!"
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From the m0nk3y, of all people. Brick Testament, illustrated Bible stories.
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From jo2y, Drift Net, see what images folks are downloading on your network.
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From CrazyErin, Fact Monster, Online Almanac, Dictionary, Atlas, and more.
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The Tempest Code Project, commenting the object code for the classic Tempest video game. I wish I had that much spare time...
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5 November 2001
This is cool for just the name alone. Who Stole Ed's Pants?
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America, land of the free and home of the brave, provided that your opinions are in line with the established ruling party. Forget flying if you're an activist.
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The Skeptic's Dictionary, from Abracadabra to Zombies. Lots of definatory blurbs on things from acupuncture to atheism, Amway, brainwashing (hmmmm), Freemason,s etc.
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An essay on Kuro5hin, The Purpose Of Religion. It meanders, which makes summarizing difficult, and I'm in a lazy mood now. I found it an interesting read.
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3 November 2001
We went to see Monsters Inc last night, along with the Attack of the 50-foot clones Trailer (the trailer was cool). The Pixar short before the movie was hilarious - almost worth the price of admission. I enjoyed the Main Attraction as well. It didn't have as many laughs as Shreck (and the humor wasn't as crude). This was the first of these computer-animated films where I got caught up in the story and ignored the techological achievement (outside of the fur on Dana Sulley). Yes, the story was watered down and disney-fied, and the denouemont was telegraphed 20 minutes into it, but I still enjoyed it thouroughly. I like John Goodman's work - his voice is perfect for the part.
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From jo2y, Linux, From PowerUp to Bash Prompt, what's going on as your system boots.
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2 November 2001
Article on Apple's 21th Century Walkperson, including some dirt n the development (8 months start to finish. wow).
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Seen on macSlash, Inside the iPod. Alas I can't read Japanese.
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Gig Alert - I'm playing in a trombone quartet for Jean Swinkler's Senior Recital at Seton Hill on Saturday, November 10 at 2:30.
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From G-R E.D., Pack your Suitcase Game, featuring a Naughty Badger.
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Spotted on an iPod reader comment page (which mentioned the iPod has an easter egg - a breakout game), Steve Wozniak on Breakout on the Apple ][. Woz was the inventor of breakout, originally expressed as a hardware design. Breakout for the Apple ][ (done in BASIC) was one of the first arcade games expressed as software.
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1 November 2001
Killer List of Video Games - exhaustive list of arcade video games. Including my favorite, Dig DugEDoug
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Spotted on kuro5hin, Kitchen Cleaning for Dummies. Contains copious amounts of profanity.
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From monkeyass, FOLK, kitchen-sink linux.
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31 October 2001
From G-R/E-D, it looks like Tinky Winky had enough of Fallwel and the homosexual insinuations.
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Seen on Flutterby, Hello Kitty as I like to see Her.
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From rzolf, My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable is a weird semi-lame web comic, although its take on Bombing the Taliban is weirdly amusing.
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Memepool is running a little blurb on plush Cthulhus, but the one they have I don't like very much - too complicated. Fenris got one of these simpler, yet cuddly, plush Cthulhus for his firstborn. I can just imagine the conversations when the little one sees her baby pictures. "Why did you have the Most Dark of the Great Old Ones in my Crib! I'll unleash the spirit of Yog-Sothoth upon you once I get back from the prom!"
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From jo2y on #wplug:
Evangelists say Halloween is the devil's holiday. What a lame-ass devil! Sitting down in the depths of hell, going, "I've got
control of the major corporations, churning out weapons and toxic waste...but how can I get candy? Let me think...I'll get the
children of the world to dress up as hobos and Power Rangers -- and then I'll have all the bite-size Three Musketeers I
need! I am Satan!
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Our community band is doing a song with narratin of Twas the Night Before Christmas. I'm hoping we can do This Version, originally from Omni Magazine.
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30 October 2001
Wow. A slashdot interview that's not totally lame: Wil Wheaton. Parts of this are hilarious. I've just remembered something, that I haven't
thought about in years. Sorry for the tangent. I know
this is sort of off-topic, but you can't mod me down!
*cackle* Ahh, the sweet, sweet elixir of corrupting
power!
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29 October 2001
Down in virginia, the local olides station was running a giveaway of stuff from Groovy Candies. All kinds of 'classic' candies from old people's youth. Mmmm... Zotz
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Hi Monkey does Pumpkin Carving. The friends we stayed with in Virginia have two youngsters (second grade and kindergarten), so I helped out in the Pumpkin Carving fest Sunday morning. Miss Laura didn't feel well enough to work on hers, but she came up with the idea of doing one with the Loudoun Symphony logo. People are very easily impressed - that is an easy shape to carve, but foks at the concert that afternoon just oohed and ahhed over it.
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From the Emiloid, more music-geek humor: Dictionary of Musical Absurdities
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The latest Joel on Software has many reasons on why I don't code for (or use) windows.
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26 October 2001
From Vinod, the PERFORMer. random numbers, and the real reason I've been getting strip-searched at airports.
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25 October 2001
From G-R E.D. TimeCube. Full-tilt wacko. I personally feel that the missing third and fifth demensions of the cube are the precise reasons for our mindless slavery to conformity! Dilute! Dilute! OK!
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Gig Alert: the spousal overunit & I are playing in the loudoun symphony performance this week. Sharlotte has some solo spots in Bolero and the Rimsky-Korsakov. I have a lot of oom-pahs in Bolero.
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23 October 2001
PeteJ has contributed some more musical haiku. I've added them to the Music Haikus page.
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From Dangi, Diplomacy flashimation, on a possible solution to the Happenings going on in Afghanistan.
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Returned from Omaha yesterday, which was a repeat (except for the cancelled flight) of the trip out. 3 out of 4 "random" strip search points, I was seleted. Guess if my destination is within driving distance, I'll be doing that. We head out tomorrow (driving) to Northern Virginia doing a Loudoun Symphony gig.
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From jo2y, wemadeoutinatreeandthisoldguysatandwatchedus, "The site dedicated to odd quotes, strange
statements, bad writing and other oddities
of the English language."
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Yay! Happy Bork. We finally got the Badger (my '87 Acura Integra) back from the dealer. It got taken in to fix a hole in the exhaust and have the timing belt replaced. They did a big oops on the timing belt, had to do a valve job, replace numerous parts. After much waffling and run-around (my 'handler' there is an idiot), 37 days later the Badger comes home. And it turned 177,000 on the way.
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19 October 2001
Crazy Erin, meet Crazy Aaron, someone who really likes putty.
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A "management classic", Rewarding A hoping for B, in how reward systems don't encourage the desired behavior.
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Went on a bookstore tour with my Mom today, and we found some Kliban Cat calendars. After looking at the 2002 calendar, I read the fine print on the front page, and found the (flash-heavy, alas) website. www.eatmousies.com.
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Cool. Billing's Billings' grandad is 90!
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From PeteJ, Musicians Haiku. Here's one I likedI once had a dream
Big house, new car, big money
Now I play the bass
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18 October 2001
Wheee, I'm in Omaha now to play a concert with my folks. First time flying since Sep 11. At 2:45 this morning I got a call from (ObGodBless) American Airlines saying the flight was cancelled. They got me onto a TWA flight that left a 6:53, PIT -> STL -> OMA. I got to the airport at 5:00 or 5:15 (it takes an hour and a half at least to drive to the airport from Leechburg). There was a line about 30 deep at the TWA counter and the staff didn't start processing folks until 5:30. At about 6:00, I got my chance to turn in the tickets for Amurrian and get TWA tickets. I was then selected as a "random", meaning I had the opportunity to take a walk with one of the few desk clerks over to this massive irradiatin machine and get my checked baggage Scanned. My tuxedo now glows in the dark.
Next stop was going through the security checkpoint. At Pittsburgh airport, there's one security checkpoint, and then you get on little trains to take you to the main terminals. I was scheduled to go to gate D86. When going through this part, you have to take all electronics and keys off yur person and put them through the X-rays. All laptop computers must come out of bags. I have my laptop with me and my bassoon. So, I take the laptop out of the bag, juggle the bag, the bassoon, the computer, my water bottle, my ticket, and my photo ID. After going through the metal scanner thing, I've been selected as another "random" check. So I get all my stuff over to a table, put the computer back in the bag, take off my jacket, and get the metal wand treatment and a pat-down.
After that I get to the gate (shlepping all the way at D86), I sit down basking in being to the gate early so I can get on the plane early so I can put my bassoon in the overhead bin. (when I travel with the instrument, I fear the day all the overheads are full and They Say that the bassoon must be checked). "Would passangers mumble, mumble, Dalrymple, mumble, and mumble please come to the ticket counter". Turns out I'm another "random" for searching (I'm three for three now).
This time each Willing Participant gets taken behind a nice little screen to have their luggage pawed through. Luckily the older gentleman who was my Handler had me do the instrument, lest he break something. By the time I was done (and another metal wand scan), everyone but the Chosen were already on the plane. Luckily the average american is still frightened out of their skulls so there was room in the overhead bin for the bassoon.
Got to St Louis in one piece - nobody tried to hijack the plane with a smuggled-on spork. One last hurdle befre I board the plane to Omaha (which of course was two concourses away from where the Pittsburgh fliht landed) - will I make it 4 for 4 in the "random" department? Luckily I managed to Elude The Authorities this time, and arrived in Omaha, and had a nice reunion with the folks.
In some sense, having a lot of random checks should be able to catch the Bad Guys before they Spork someone, but if their random number generator is that bad, it's probably really annoying some folks, and leaving a large percentage of folks getting by without scrutiny.
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17 October 2001
For all you ThunderCat fans, Some audio outtakes. I had always wished Snarf would get crushed by some falling boulder, but it would never happen. Bastards.
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ArsTechnica has a review of Mac OS/X 10.1. Looks like I can finally turn off the anti-aliased fonts!
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Happy Birthday to me! Wheeeeee.
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Proof that Girls are Evil
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xf86 passed along this fun little Optical Illusion.
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What wusses. If I lived on Anthrax Street, I'd revel in the name.
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16 October 2001
I've found Domokun amusing enough to steal an AIM buddy icon.
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New term I found amusing, given the media whipping us up into a germ warfare frenzy. Sporefare.
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From Enna, The new Demotivators for 2002.
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I'm serching the web for the lyrics to songs from Annie Get Your Gun - I played a run of that last week, and only heard about half the words. Google came up with Anything you can do, I can do better, but not from the original soundtrack. The lyrics look like some kind of home-boy Johnny Quest rip-off.
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Dr. Weil on Biological Warfare.
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Porn Bomb, bring down the Taliban with high-grade American Porn. (note there is no actual porn on the page)
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15 October 2001
Who cares if they're hot or not? Now a days it's terrorist or not.
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Joel on Software, in praise of Not Invented Here.
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Stolen from Flutterby, Guess The Speaker, Bin Laden, Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson.
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From rzolf. The Japanese are just Weird. This is domokun, not to be confused with the Toast Guy, kogepan. And here is the official site.
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14 October 2001
From the ex-arsdigita group, For Last Paycheck, More [dotcom] Workers Cede their rights to Sue. Most corporate lay-offs these days include somewhat draconian termination agreements. "you cannot sue the company. You can not defame nor speak badly about the company. ". To not sign the agreement means forfieture of any severance packages. Luckily there's COBRA (health care continuance), which is mandated by federal law, so at least in that people can't be extorted into signing the termination agreements. (now, given the cost of COBRA, it's its own extortion...)
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13 October 2001
Rzolf and DocWolf built Godwin's Waiting Room. Godwin's law is "As an online discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or
Hitler approaches one." e.g. net.discussions inevitably degenerate into a flame fest, given enough time.
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12 October 2001
Gig Alert: we're playing "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg. Shows are friday and saturday evening, and sunday afternoon.
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From Billings, a hardcore Enya fan.
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11 October 2001
Not only is Bert Evil, but there is another version of The Poster floating around. (this one courtesy of EBradway)
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From the Castle Anthrax, Florida Dude Gotten by Naturally-Occuring anthrax. If I were a terrorist, I don't think that some old guy in Florida would be the most effective first use of a biological weapon. Although seeing the paranoid frenzy this has stirred up, it just might have been. Personally I'm hoping to see the return of Ebola.
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Wheee. I got laid off. Details hidden for now. Sorry.
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From RadioFreeKinkyFisher, Muppet Masters Miffed over the Evil Bert. Frighteningly enough, this looks like a real poster, not just someone who photoshopped Bert in there. Here's another.
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10 October 2001
Making the rounds, since Bert is Evil. Muppets in odd places (or, if like me, you're having trouble downloading the whole page, here's just the image)
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9 October 2001
From wired, What future war looks like. relevant quote:The Civil War period saw what was called a constitutional dictatorship.
There was a suspension of civil liberties, including habeas corpus. World War II saw a
crisis government. When under massive assault, a democracy will recognize the fact it
will have to take measures it would not ordinarily use in peace times, lessening civil
rights and suspension of due process. When the crisis is over, the liberties are returned.
The problem with this is: Who decides when the crisis is over, or will it be over?
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Sometimes, swiming advice is timeless.
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At Harvard, B-minus average == cum laude and 90% graduate with honors. With that kind of scale, I could have gradued from Hendrix with a summa, at least.
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From flutterby, Girl With half her brain removed. Which is actually a pretty nifty tale of someone thriving after major surgery. The part about feeling fluid slosh around in her head is kinda Oogie, though.
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8 October 2001
Last night some of us went to Blast, the Drum and Bugle Corps spin-off you might have seen on PBS. It's billed as the next Stomp or the next RiverDance, and which is an apt description. We had pretty good seats last night - and after the first piece (a version of Bolero) I felt I had gotten my money's worth. And then things just got better from there. At the end I was nearly numb from sensory overload. If you have a spare evening, and they're coming to your area. go see this. The PBS special does not do this show justice.
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Saturday I went to a "Piano-man-a-thon" at the Leechburg high school. Dave Ritzel, the band director there, lost some relatives on 9/11. He wanted to raise funds to the Red Cross, and decided to do things in his own personal idiom. For each of 12 hours, he played 45 minute piano-lounge sets. Folks coule give him requests, and some folks brought in music (although he had a wide collection of music that he brought) There were some truly magical moments during this. Fer example, during a Show Tunes set, Riztel started playing one of the songs from The Rose. Part way through, a local voice teacher just got up, joined him at the piano, and started singing one of the harmony lines. Shortly thereafter, her daughter joined them with the third harmony line. I was close to tears after that one. In between Ritzel sets, other musicians from the area filled in the time.
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7 October 2001
A cautionary Tale for New Age of Surveillance, about Britain being tured in to an Orwellian paradise of over two million surveillance cameras. One of the most chilling comments is one of the campaign slogans used over in Britain "If you've got nothing to hide,
you've got nothing to fear." A slogan that can be used to justfify wiretapping, home searches, and personal apprehension and questioning. "By one
estimate, the average Briton is now photographed by 300 separate cameras in a
single day."
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6 October 2001
Fans of the Apple ][ know the name Steve Wozniak. He's a genuinely nice guy, who even answers questions from the fascinating to the mundane.
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5 October 2001
From CurtisG, Haüs of the Ugly Couch
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Macintouch had a pointer to these Google search stats pages, both before and after the WTF WTC incident.
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Something for Porruka: National Novel Writing Month. Write a novel in 30 days.
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An article on Wahhabi Muslims, the puritan / fundamentalist wing of Islam that breeds the suicide troops which is giving the rest of Islam a bad name. Plus it makes an interesting point about Saudi Arabia's role in the whole mess, and why you don't hear about it (which given the petropolitical climate, is unsurprising)
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mhughes over on #wplug pointed me to Adequacy.org. It's a hoot. Here is I'm a teenager, and I want it bad!, including
For you and your
boyfriend I recommend cold showers, organized sports, and learning
Linux, all three of these activities are proven to reduce the sex drive
and reduce opportunities for sex.
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4 October 2001
There's some weird interesting stuff going on inside of aD these days that I can't mock comment on yet. DougEDoug passed on this article, Venator Realizes Its Name Is Stupid
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You've probably seen the photoshopped picture of the slacker-dude on top of the WTC with a picture of the plane coming at him. There's now Evidence that said slacker-dude is more than he appears.
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Spotted over on Kuro5hin, A few of my favorite things, a mini quotes file.
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3 October 2001
Yet Another Personality Test, The Bartle Quotient, for folks that hang around on MUDs (I don't, but ClanLord is kind of MUDish). I'm an "ESA":
| Explorer | 80% |
| Socializer | 66% |
| Achiever | 46% |
| Killer | 6% |
(yeah, it adds up to 200%). The ESAs are a small percentage of the overall MUD world (11% maybe), but on the ClanLord Stats, 29% of folks are ESAs.
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2 October 2001
It's not just for self-defense, it's also a Fashion Statement
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From RadioFreeKinkyFisher, Scott Adams: Dilbert's Ultimate Cubicle
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From PHewitt, Google in sweedish-chef speak (although DougEDoug told me about it last April. But I forgot about it)
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Acts of Gord, tales from a video game shop owner. Right now I'm enjoying the Thow Shall Not Steal From Gord! pages. Gord also has a pretty good take on Why the Xbox won't succeed.
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Don't look! From the m0nk3y, it's a naked bear.
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Now you too can be Hi Monkey for Halloween
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1 October 2001
A peek at what the movie scooby doo looks like. Fred and Daphne look pretty oogie in that picture. As always, Velma is hot.
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From ATP, Logical Errors and Mass Hysteria, and why our leaders aren't doing us any favors by punishing the average law-abiding citizen.
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Blatantly stolen from DougEDoug, ref scores a goal for the losing team. Given the beating that Leechburg is getting, maybe they can brainwash some of the refs...
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30 September 2001
The Grand list of Console Role Playing Game Cliches.
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From the Big E.D., cyborg blah blah blah, some arty article I snoozed half-way through, but the chair idea at the beginning is pretty cool. I can imagine amusement parks being one of the first to deploy them.
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28 September 2001
From the m0k3y, exactly why you shouldn't annoy your friendly local sysadmins.
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Over on Kur5hin, I saw a reference to the Wikipedia, an encyclopedia but done wiki-style. Wiki is a collaboration system where everyone has complete write access to all pages. You, me, the annoying skr1pt k1dd13, everyone. What's amazing is the quality of the stuff there. Check out pointers to Brilliant Prose, meta information on Being Bold in updating pages and Wiki is not paper, and for CrazyErin, there's Star Wars.
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A classic. The Twinkies Proect. Pretty frightening, I must say.
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A disturbance in the force? It may be real, or may be hokum, but the Deviation in randomness around the time of the WTC incident.
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27 September 2001
Wheeee. Last night was the Premiere of the latest edition of the Trek Franchise. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Awhile ago I found a so-called annotated script. It looks like the Real Thing. And the annotations are hilarious.
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DougEDoug pointed me to The Onion today, which has a humorous (yet not tacky) spin on the WTC events. Like God Clarifies "Don't Kill" Rule and US Vows to Defeat Whoever it is we're at war with
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From a review of Enterprise, about it being the worst thing ever ot happen to Trek (they also say it's the best thing), but anyway:
The skin-tight catsuit
on the Vulcan T'Pol and her gratuitous rub-down in oily blue
Jello; the equal-time skin shots of the show's handsome
male leads; the dropping of the Star Trek sobriquet and
the use of a Rod Stewart theme song (Did they HAVE to go
with a power ballad? Hello? Aren't the Eighties OVER?); all
of it indicates close and careful attention to demographics
and market studies, art by focus group, storytelling by
worrying consensus. Enterprise is not driven by any
creator's vision of a story, because its creators aren't
concerned with a story: they're concerned with a franchise,
and we can only hope that they even know the difference.
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Found in a comment on slashdot about Enterprise. Dancing Evil Elf. I like the theme music (even if it is insanely loud on my powerbook).
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26 September 2001
Kuro5hin has an article on make vs ant, two build tools. I found ant frustrating to use (when getting my home copy of ACS/Java to compile), and I'm familiar with make. I was amused by the conculsions of the article (e.g. we're using it for the wrong purpose)
Use ant if:
- You are a single developer or one of a very small
development group working a small Java-based
application and you don't know make.
- You are working on a project that will be developed or
deployed on a platform other than UNIX or Windows
- Your developers are all using their own build scripts and
you need something fast and are not looking to build a
large general-purpose build system
Use make if:
- You know make
- You are working on a medium to large sized project or on
a project with more than a few developers.
- You need to integrate with a variety of configuration
management tools
- You are building a medium to long-term solution for build
and deployment that must handle a wide variety of tools
and technologies
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Remember kiddies, there is no I in Teamwork, but there is an Ewok.
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25 September 2001
From Grand-Rapper E.D. From a sick friend:
London: IRA terrorists have committed a "copycat" hijacking.
The bastards got the Goodyear blimp!
So far, they've bounced off Buckingham Palace, the Tower Bridge and Big Ben!!!
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From grand-rapper E.D., a good use for barbie and ken dolls
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24 September 2001
more from the Brunchers, Dante's Inferno Punishments, Part I.
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GVD has been pondering that the next logical step for the terrorist organizations are biological attacks. He's dug up some info on botulism.
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From rzolf, fleep. Fleep currently appears in the weekly
newspaper, "Asian Week". It's about a boy who
wakes up in a telephone booth which has been
mysteriously selaed in an envelope of concrete.
Using only the contents of his pockets (two pens,
a paperback novel, three coins and 20 ft of
unwaxed dental floss) our hero must fashion and
execute an escape plan before he runs out of
oxygen.
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A cool LIDAR map of the wtc area. I didn't realize that the Marriott down there was actually 3 World Trade Center. I lived in that hotel for 4 months during my tenure there.
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my god. she has three arms!
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Not from the m0nk3y, but should have been. Monkeypiece Theatre, review of monkey movies.
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23 September 2001
DougEDoug has a pointer to some content from the Brunching Shuttlecocks. They also have Choose your own Damn Adventure | Serial Murder | Sex Act, and more (including Harry Potter Adventure). Note that these are pretty cynical.
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MapBlast!, see how far the damage will go if you drop a nuclear explosive. Here's Pittsburgh. I'm not 100% sure, but I think we're inside the (1) Ring. We're also in the 900 Rem lethal dose fallout range. wheeee!
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Another example of entertainment software you won't find but on the web. how bored are you?.
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cool map of new york structural damage
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My Catholic Mass is better than your Catholic Mass.
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21 September 2001
Over at yahoo, a pretty hard-hitting essay about Eighteen Guys that Shook The World.
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Spotted in comp.sys.mac.games.adventure, Role Playing Tips, something handy during the next protracted business meeting. "Suddenly MulDar clubs your silly database idea into the ground!"
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For the oracle nerds out there, OraFAQ, all sorts of faqs and whatnot about Oracle.
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20 September 2001
From davb in #openacs, Morons.org, including articles about Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine by Nimda, Congress Endorses Limitless Wiretapping Without Warrants, Moron to ticket agent : I have a nuclear bomb.
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An essay, Freedom Flees in Terror from Sept. 11 Disaster. Unfortunately, many folks I hear are conflating the loss of conveniences ("gee, you lose curb-side checkin. wah. get over it") and the loss of civil liberties. The rapid installation of Carnivore (the FBI email sniffing technology) makes me nervous, plus the current attempts at castrating encryption technology by the congress make me scared. Do you think that will stop the Bad Guys from using encryption? No - they'll just use technologies without governmental back doors. I have no faith in our government bodies will ever give up power they have - this "war against terrorism" will probably be as effective as the "war against drugs", and drag on for decades.
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CrazyErin, don't read this. From slashdot, Episode I on DVD, and Star Wars Galaxies, a frothcming MMORPG.
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IronPhone, for when you get those hot calls.
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I'm pretty burned-out today, so I've been doing some random surfing. Came across (courtesy of DougEDoug How Stuff Works, including how those Big Tower Cranes work. What I'd like to see is HiMonkey operating one of those. That would be cool
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Killing the Buddah. Why kill the Buddha?
Because the Buddha you
meet is not the true Buddha,
but an expression of your
longing. If this Buddha is not
killed he will only stand in
your way.
Why Killing the Buddha? For
our purposes, killing the
Buddha is a metaphor for
moving past the
complacency of belief, for
struggling honestly with the
idea of God.
Reflections on religion, both postive and negative.
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Following yet another SlashDot thread on construction toys (the debut of Atollo, was a discussion about Capsela, one of my favorites as a kid (after Lego and Micronauts, of course)
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From RageMax, Microsoft, the punative Puppeteer
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A slashdot comment (you can tell I'm brain-damaged today if I'm reading slashdot comments) on the encryption backdoor issue.
too much time is being spent thinking about the technical aspects of
enforcement and use of 'backdoors'. what everyone's failing to realize
is that the technical aspects of crypto laws are irrelevent. it's how they
will be used htat's important. if any cyrpto laws are passed, they'll be
used in prosecution and trial rather than proactively enforced.
picture this scenario: you are a criminal who has been sending
encrypted mesages to someone else. you're busted, and on trial you are
asked to decrypt the messages. you refuse. you are then thrown in jail
for not complying with the crypto laws.
again, i'm not a lawyer, but it seems that if crypto laws will work in
this manner, we are throwing away our 5th ammendment right to
refuse to incriminate ourself.
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19 September 2001
A guy who Flies with balloons. I like the name of his aircraft.
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How the US military comes up with its Mission Names. Personally, I'm waiting for "Operation Greeble Bork" myself.
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*sigh*. I just received a "The U.S. wants us to light a candle tonight and a satellite picture to be put onto the news tomorrow. Please send to everyone you know" annoying email (it's a hoax, folks). Be sure to check out the Rumors of War urban legends reference. Includes the clearchannel thing I mentioned below.
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This question comes up every now and then, so I figured I'd record it here. Difference between Oracle 8i Standard and Enterprise Editions (might require a free login)
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18 September 2001
Hi Monkey draws cartoons!
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An so the corporate censorship begins in earnest thanks to the WTC. Clearchannel stations have been given a list of songs to ban, due to questionable content in light of the WTC. Everytime I hear Walk Like An Egyptian, I feel the urge to commit ultraviolence.
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CrazyErin is heading to the airforce to do "Crytologic Lingusitics", a tongue-twisting term that makes me go "huh?" A google search of the complete term turned up with three (yes, three) hits. A geocities page on Combat Crew Training (apparently Top Secret), an AOL members page about Goodfellow AFB (featuring a pretty disturbing animated plane heading for the ground), and a lawyer's blurb sheet.
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One of the more brilliant uses of multimedia on the web. IBM Hard Disk Drive Kowledge Base, featuring audio files of hard drive failure modes.
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14 September 2001
A site of lots of WTC-related links. fark.com
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A solution to getting back at those nasty terrorists! Consume! Americans have shown how generous we are in recent days. Now there
is one more thing we can do. Just as we rally around the flag, we can
rally around the market that made us what we are. We can spend
money.
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Kinda of a sick thought. CHARVA, essentially ncurses for java. Granted I'm weird. I want to write/run some programs from my linux boxen that do more than just simple command-line prompt and display, but I don't want to run X on my Mac to have anything fancier.
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Oh joy. The start of the erosion of our basic freedoms has begun as various parts of the government grab for power. Like the deployment of carnivore. I don't have a link handy, but there's also talk of requiring government backdoors in cryptography products
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I'm not much of a news hound, but I can't seem to keep myself from following WTC links. Maybe I'm just in a morbid phase. Airliners.net aviation forum from august 2000 on 767 -> WTC speculation. Other folks lease the WTC for 99 years back in April (and it looks like they'll be rebuilding). skyscrapers.com is keeping a vigil for other buildings that have fallen (American Express building) and will fall (Millenium Hilton and One Liberty Plaza). A thought provoking letter from an Afghan-American about why simple bombing won't work, and the possible (probable?) conclusion of an Afghan invasion. A rational response to Fallwel/Bush putting the religious / punishment from God spin on things.
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13 September 2001
We find the real culprit of the WTC: Microsoft!
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And an obligatory shot of patriotism from our canuck-neighbors back in 73.
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Happy Anniversary to Me! 5 years and counting. On this day in 1996 (yes, it was a friday), at 1:00 pm (yeah, 1300 hours) we tied the knot.
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More WTC links: First person account, a Time Photo essay, structural engineer comments on the WTC collapse, and more structural engineer comments (apologies in advance - this uses fully justified text, which I find really difficult to read on web pages)
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Hello Kitty could be our future. Be afraid.
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12 September 2001
Random WTC links: Investigators find terror clues in Boston(e). First Person Accounts on Slashdot. The Economist (london) has a pretty good article. a quote:
ronically, New York was a city with one of the best anti-terrorist contingency
plans in the country. But those plans were aimed at a biological or chemical
attack. And the situation room where the response was to be co-ordinated
was in the World Trade Centre, of all places.
Also, Arafat Donates Blood (which probably can't be used since he's been overseas for more than three months). And, World Banks seek market stability, including 10-15 billion in insurance claims. Amazon's collection for the Red Cross, $790,000 when I added this link. NASA images of the smoke plume. The Counter-terrorist myth, how we probably will have a hard time tracking down Ben-Ladin. Animated gif of base reflectivity of the smoke plume yesterday evening. How the WTC fell
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Michael Moore has some thoughts on the WTC incident.
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11 September 2001
WTC pictures
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A brief rant on the World Trade Crater.
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Japan's Red Army Claims Responsibility for US Attacks
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10 September 2001
Woo hoo! Looks like Snoot.com is back. Snoot was one of the early 'interactive game sites' on the net, including classics like Celebrity Wuss Scale and HangSnoot, and SICO, some internet chess thingie.
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From the University of Western Australia, invalid mathematical proof techniques.
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From MemePool, Waffle Woman, making all people who have attended UALR (University of Arkansas at Little Rock) very proud. What's frightening is that I think I know one of Waffle Woman's references.
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A slashdot story generator. I'm convinced (given the number of FirstPost/Stinkyfinger/Natalie Portman posts) that slashdot already uses similar technology for the comments section.
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9 September 2001
More m0nk3y business. The HiMonkey replied to my reply. I've archived the correspondence. I really like this monkey.
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8 September 2001
Cooking with M0nk3y. Delightful pages of low-stress advice. And Monkey is friendly too. I received this email:
thanks for mentioning my little web page on your site.
yours appreciatively,
monkey
i'm small,
i'm terry cloth
&
i think i have a nice personality.
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7 September 2001
I find this particular Jerk City John Carpenter's The Subjunctive to be amusing. Note that most of Jerkcity is simultaneously weird, incoherent, and sometimes offensive. But oftentimes pretty funny.
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Some good stuff on memepool today. The Cook's Thesaurus, lots of information there. Plus a Lego Robot that solves the Rubik's Cube
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From Billings, Atlas Shrugged 2: the Quickening.
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It's now 2:45 am, and I'm helping one of aD's clients, away.com with their site re-launch. Check it out. It's purty.
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Compaq HP introduces a new keyboard.
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As much as I enjoy helping people out with technical questions, the "I'm too lazy to rtfm so I'll ask a simplistic question and expect folks to do my work for me" kind of questions really get on my nerves, such as This Thread on the aD Java board, where Jerry Asher tears into the idiot (somewhat) subtly. I've snarfed the Jeapordy theme and put it here at jtheme.wav. I don't have my MIME types set up on the server, so it might not play for you automatically. sorry.
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Finally! A form letter you can send to folks who insist on forwarding you internet drivel you've seen dozens of times.
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6 September 2001
The m0nk3y was looking for Homer Simpson style glasses to make it look like you're awake in church/meetings. Alas Chinese Glasses were the closest he found. I recommended getting a mascot costume instead.
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I'm subscribed to the SuSE Oracle mailing list. Usually it's noise about installation problems, or the occasional "can Linux do this?" kind of stuff. But every now and then there's a huge, interesting and informative posting by someone. In this case it's about OPS (a.k.a. RAC).
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From LydiaTheEncyclopidia, . "A major component of the film is our continued effort to create a physical
Monument to the Failed Dot-com Economy ('95-2000), Internet 1.0. But we need
your help!". (I haven't looked at much of it yet since I'm on a dirt-slow link here, but it looks interesting)
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I guess this guy Doesn't Like Linux.
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5 September 2001
From Macintouch:
Ellen Hancock, a former VP at Apple under Gil Amelio,
resigned yesterday from her position as Chairman and CEO of
Exodus Communications, one of the world's largest server
hosting companies. The company is currently $3 billion in debt.
Exodus is where arsDigita has most of its machines.
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From Chunks that yes there may actually be a God.
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From StellaStarlight, Lap Dance flashimation. If you've been around cats, this should be a familiar scene.
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From GVD, Useless Quotes.
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Since Miss Erin seems to like bunny rabbits, here's one striking an odd pose, and some more bunnies with stuff on their heads.
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4 September 2001
Found on MacSlash, TiBook X-Rays.
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New month, new TroubleShooting Professional. This time Steve takes on the Microsoft rental licensing scheme, and its impact on open-source software adoption.
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Over on Kuro5hin, someone writes about Caffiene Detox, falling on and off the caffiene-free wagon. Back in 94 or 95, I had a 12-pack of diet coke a day habit. LL BeanPole kicked the caffiene thing and felt immeasurably better so following his lead, I too kicked the caffiene thing. As described in that article, it was 2 weeks of hell - I'm glad Sharlotte didn't decide to trade me in on a better model during that time. Nowadays I occasionally partake in the high-test stuff, but only applying it like the drug that it is. If I really need to be awake and "alert" for whatever reason, I hit the Dr. Pepper. Outside of that, it's the non-caffienated stuff for me. (and in actuallity, since my bad blood glucose/triglyceride results back in july, I've been pretty much off the sweetened non-caffienated beverages altogether. Generally just water, some juice occasionally, and club soda when going out)
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Another fine product from Midnight Linux, gleak.
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From GEM on #openacs, Stupid Cow-orkers.
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CurtisG spent the Labor Day weekend shooting off rockets. Afterwards he sent me a link to this page about Video Rocketry, amateur pyromaniactechnicians combining videography and model rocketry.
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3 September 2001
Oh my god! it's a Giant Bunny!. Complete with soundtrack.
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Another cool(?) flash-i-mation, Tales of Blode 2, A Day at the Seaside.
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31 August 2001
From Bern, The Disco Inferno (apparently from NPR) "question: what do play with a shoehorn? answer: footnotes"
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For all of the Francophiles out there, MacEdition's Parting Shot looks at a possbile evoulution of the iMac line.
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DougEDoug, in the Even More Pointless Department, has a pointer to the I can eat glass. It doesn't hurt me project, where they're trying to translate it into lots of languages. After you hurl looking at the page design, take a visit to the much more original and amusing Oh my God! There's an axe in my head project. (courtesy of Billings last March).
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30 August 2001
I've been receiving a lot of SirCam ("I am sendinging you this to be havnening your opinion!") mail to my markd@loudounsymphony.org address. I think I've figured out the True Reason for the developent of SirCam : It's a great way to find out who's been reading your website! (since the virus grovels in your web browser cache looking for addresses). It seems to be more reliable than just about any scheme involving cookies you could come up with. And given the history of Microsoft "innovation" in the security arena, it should be easier to propagate this user tracker.
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Found on slashdorkdot, High Speed Photography, high school students capture the action bursting water ballons, squashed tennis balls, and much more.
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Woo hoo! Turns out that the nick 'markd' on the OpenProjects IRC channels wasn't actually reserved. I managed to snarf it, so I can finally shed myself of the lame "markd2" nick.
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Cool stuff shows up in the most unexpected places. MacEdition (not to say it's not cool) has a story on Video Game Myths, a quickie history of various video game superlatives.
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29 August 2001
Spotted on Flutterby, Jet-air glider. Remind me to take a boat next time I cross the Atlantic.
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From DougEDoug, Tahiti.oracle.com, searchable oracle documentation.
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Kuro5hin has a little essay about Expensive and hideously overpowered computers showing up in inappropriate places, and includes a link to Linux 4K Intros - folks writing graphical demos in 4K. Not something I'd like to do, but a fascinating idea, somewhat along the lines of those 'ships in bottles' guys.
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From MonkeyAss: The Sisters Of Zathras, much interesting being reading that.
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GregH sent me some Pretty Graphs of some large-scale qmail deliveries. I like pretty graphs.
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27 August 2001
Look out! The next time you're in your supermarket, you just might become their slave!
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26 August 2001
Mom sent our criters one of these HOT CATS catnip toys, which look like true crack cocaine for the kitty set. Newton has been chewing and drooling on one of these for at least 10 minutes now.
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I try to be a nine-to-fiver - usually I have music stuff I want to do in the evenings, and I like my weekend time to catch up on all of the personal website projects I've gotten myself into. Alas, for this month and into next month, there are two huge projects that I'm working on "half-time" : one is a massive requirements gathering effort for a boil-the-ocean Web Presence, and the other is a massive redesign of one of my favorite clients. The Requirements gathering hopefully will be done by September seventh, and we throw the switch for the re-launch on, uh, September seventh. Add in to all of this educational necessity of ramping up on Java and ACS 4.6 for the new project. This last week was insane, but alas I missed the eighty hour week by this much.
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Hmmm.. maybe the southpaws of the world are Warping our DNA?
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25 August 2001
Stolen from a link on Flutterby: Some Programmer Humor. Folks who have worked with me know I'm pretty obsessive about revision control comments. Hence I find the 'Possible NT Revision Control Logs" particularly amusing.
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New Content! : Java Book Reviews. I'm needing to learn Java pretty deeply and pretty quickly, hence a good excuse to blow some bucks on technical books.
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DougEDoug and I were talking about keyboards the other day, specifically the placement of the "control" key, which is very important to emacs/unix weenies like us. I have a weird typing style where my pinkies don't do much more than tab, shift, control (left hand) or shift and return (right hand). So curling down to hit the control key isn't a Big Deal.
At a WPLUG installpest, I picked up a Happy Hacking Keyboard (a black version of the "Keyboard Lite" version), which I realy like. It's a quiet keyboard with a very nice feel. (yeah, I have a point to all of this... I think) Its control key is where the caps lock is on most other keyboards. Recently I've been doing some playing with Java GUI programs, and I have now completely confused my poor hands. Now when I move to the powerbook, I hit the caps lock key. When I move back to the HH keyboard, I reach for the meta key at the bottom. Guess I need to re-learn how to wrangle xmodmap to change it.
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Stolen from DougEDoug, Tell Me About It Advice for the Under-30 Crowd column that runs in the Washington post. Figured it might be interesting for the younger readers around here.
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24 August 2001
Cringley on Do it yourself DSL
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To Grand-Rapper E.D. soon Japan is heading he is. Web site! To me he Engrish give, honorably.
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23 August 2001
Following a weird chain of discussion in #wplug, BethLynn (the Queen of WPLUG) posted the Marriage Table, including age of consent. (Perfect for the Artmonger...)
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Snugs sent around The Rapture email without realizing it was untrue. Thanks to LL Bean Pole for the link.
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22 August 2001
Also from the m0nk3y, Weeeee! Gonads and Strife!, Yet Another weird Flashimation.
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More m0nk3y business. Apparently there's a new Dilbert-esque Management fad Who's Got The Monkey, and folks are already starting to Cash In. Granted, the genesis is from the seventies. Guess that's a typicall "idea - abuse" lag in Management Circles. Personally I'm hoping for that TQM thing to really take off.
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from jo2y on #wplug:Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worship the number zero? Is nothing sacred?
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From Grand-Rapper E.D., Fancy Slide rules in WW II, and the article does end with a happy(?) ending for the author.
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21 August 2001
An interview with Berke Breathed over at the onion.
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From RageMax, Apple Desktop Hacks including macs in legos and tupperware. The Color Classic G4 is just sick.
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20 August 2001
From MonkeyAss, found an amusing open-source project WhosPaying, and one not so amusing. Luckily all of my wireles stuff is via ssh, aim (inherently insecure), and I run macs (so nyah to you if you try to break in)
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Found over at DougEDoug's Place, The Confluence Project, an interesting (yet quite pointless) project involved in visiting the integral latitude/longitude degree intersectons around the globe.
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From Enna, Jet Powered Beer Cooler
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19 August 2001
A Tour of Supercomputers that the National Center for Atmospheric Research has owned. Including The Visible Cray
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Woo freaking hoo! I finally got ACS/Java working on my home machine. It's a pain going from two cranky, yet familiar technologies (Oracle and aolserver on Linux) to many cranky, unfamiliar technologies that don't seem to play nice with each other (Oracle, tomcat, xerces, java). Once I got a working acs4.6.1 tarball (the first one came down corrupted, I stupidly deleted a second download, and finally got a working one on the third. this makes 24 megs through a 56k isdn pipe). Plus it turns out that tomcat + jdk 1.3.1 + Suse Linux 7.1 == random coredumps. I had to downgrade to jdk 1.3.0_03 (after I burned a number of hours fixing a tomcat / JVM crash. a 27 meg download), plus add two missing JDBC oracle driver files (about 3 megs). I hope I don't have to go through that pain again any time soon.
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An interesting concept, Mac Game programming contents. I'm a bit puzzled by the logo. Why is she holding a jeweled plunger?
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18 August 2001
Found on the balloon twister's mailing list, American Sign Language Browser (requires quicktime), as well as a Fingerspelling demo and the ASL alphabet. Several years ago I worked with a fun deaf programmer (Hi Ian!) and learned enough ASL to survive. I don't remember much of it these days except the numbers less than 10 (which are handy when counting rests in the orchestra - I can count, unambiguously, to 100 measures of rest with two hands) and the alphabet (which is really handy at times. I can spell to myself "you are such a loser, please shut up before I do serious harm to you with a chainsaw" during long meetings)
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17 August 2001
It looks like Be is now dead. I've only been truly excited about three operating systems: MacOS back in 1984, NeXTstep, and BeOS. BeOS did so much *right* - pervasie multithreading, a very well done C++ GUI toolkit, attributed journaled filesystem, very simple yet flexible component arhitecture, SMP out of the box, and a ton of very sexy demos, the original BeBox was truly drool-worthy. Alas the company didn't have a clear direction (we're a media creation OS! No! We're for games! No! We're for embedded Internet Appliances!), and never really supported the hardware I wanted to use. By the time I got an Intel box that could run it, the OS had become so marginalized that it didn't make any sense to devote a lot of time working with it, outside of running a few demos.
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Looks like someone is picking up where WASAW (Writers and Artists Snacking At Work) left off. Taquitos.net, focusing primarily on the crunchy-chip archtype.
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15 August 2001
Balloon sighting on Garfield.
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From CurtisG, Safety Tips for Elevator Riders Personally I use elevators for all my travel.
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Greetings from DC! I was summoned down here yesterday for some requirements-gathering meetings with the DNC. I originally though I was going working with the DNRC, but alas that's not to be. Turns out the hotel I'm staying at (or at least the room I'm in) is an electronics Bermuda Triangle. The in-hotel internet was broken (although it was pretty cool talking to the Wayport(tm) support folks. 'what hotel you in? what room? (click click click), oh yeah, your marklar is marklar. It's now on the list to be fixed. sorry about that.' Add to that the alarm clock didn't work (yes it was set right). All that wouldn't be so bad if i didn't have a pile of work for my other client that I had to get done by this morning.
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13 August 2001
Billings pointed me to some more animations by the Pika guy.
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From SeanY, And you thought Unix was just an operating system.
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From ze Vashington Pohst, Hiker Plucked from Certain Death in the Potomac River. Turns out that the Unnamed Hiker is a friend of mine (a very good band director in the northern Virginia area).
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12 August 2001
It's good to be back home. The Spousal Unit & I were at the IDRS (International Double-Reed Society) convention in Morgantown WV. I'll write up more when I get unpacked and re-settled in the lack of air conditioning.
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4 August 2001
tdxdave over on #openacs on irc.openprojects.net pointed me at a really cool idea. Fledging Unix Programmers, a guy who runs mini bootcamps that teaches unix programming. Referenced on that page is a small essay Teach yourself programming in 10 Years, a nice counterpoint to the "Learn Distributed Networking Computing for Dummies in 7 hours" books that are polluting the bookstores. (although I must admit to getting the "Java Weekend Crash Course" book. Bad Bork!)
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3 August 2001
Chunks keeps sending me this one (more flash crap), Pika. Hyakugojyuuichi!! TV Says donuts are high in fat! It's truly on the weird side.
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From Chunks, a flashimation of Pygmy Shrews, featuring (very briefly) a badger.
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2 August 2001
The Programmers Stone was referenced in a comment in the Scooby5hin story below. I haven't read it yet, but it looked interesting glancing through it. Now to find some spare time (ha!) to read it.
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From kuro5hin, Scooby Doo as a Product of the Enlightenment. The abstract tells it all. Scooby Doo is essentially about casting the light of reason
on corruption cloaked in mysticism. Amen brotha'.
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1 August 2001
While chatting with the m0nk3y, the subject of riding lawn mowers came up. After he got a good laugh at my expense about us having a trailer hitch on our Honda Accord to tote our John Deere around, he pointed me a Lets Mow!.
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31 July 2001
The description for these includes the term "seriously odd". I tend to agree. (these are, of course, Wooda Wooda Magic Wands)
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Greetings from Boston! I'm on a new project for aD, and this week is the kick-off (lots of meetings going over the spec, planning development, etc). It's my first Java project here (first Java project ever), so I'm terrified out of my mind getting into completley new tools and toolkits. That's what makes it fun I guess. The trip up was plesantly uneventful. After taking my Oracle DBA test this morning, I went to the Pittsburgh airport (an hour and a half drive) and hung around for a couple of hours. I'm weird - I like airports, the food, the people there (had a pleasant chat with the ticketing agent as we unsnarled my reservations that were a day shifted from ), and the chapels. They're a nice, quiet place to get away from the general Crush of Humanity (which can get wearing after awhile). I usualy just sit in the corner and medidate, and it's nice being able to rest ones eyes and not worry about some Bad Guy running off with your computer bag. The one in Pittsburgh is small and hidden away on a small upper level most folks ignore. The one in Boston's Logan airport is *huge*, the inside probably on par with First Lutheran of Leechburg's interior. Nice and dark and covered in brick. The Boston one has the obligatory "donate a dollar and light a candle" thing, except the "candles" are electric. Kind of takes the mystique out of them I guess.
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Woo Hoo!, I passed my Oracle DBA Networking test today (a grade of 86%) I didn't ace it like I wanted to (got 95% on my first test). Now there's three more tests to go. Wheeeeeee!
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30 July 2001
Danger!! could be looking over your shoulder RIGHT NOW!!!!!
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29 July 2001
Cool quote from the balloon mailing list. "Also roller blades mixed with stairs and pushy friends make for a lethal
combination. (personal experience)" in a discussion about whether (as Jeapordy! says) balloons are the most dangerous children's toy. For those of you with small children, balloons are choking hazard. If the little'un is in the "immediately put into mouth stage" (which alas sometimes I'm in that stage), then balloons are not apporpriate. (they are a conforming surface, so if a balloon breaks in their mouth, it'll conform to the airway - the Heimlich (tm) won't dislodge it) Likewise, if you have dogs that chew everything, balloons aren't good to have around them either.
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27 July 2001
The s0ckm0nk3y must be bored today. He sends along the Patent and site for the Digital Sundial. Wickedly cool idea.
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Less Talk, more M0nk3y
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Chunks sent me to some aD related cartoons. Barbie Jeep and Ham Styles. If you want, you can Built your own cartoon in the style of Red Meat
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Billings posted a servey over at beliefnet, Belief-o-matic. Answer the questions, find out your place in the great scheme of things. It says I'm Unitarian (100%), with Liberal Quaker (96%) a close second. (I do kind of like oats. wiiiiilllllbur!). In reading the Unitarian list, it seems awfully wishy-washy. A friend got Secular Humanist, (I scored 86%) which I tend to recognize more in line with my thoughts.
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Don't forget that today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, so go out and hug your favorite sysadmin.
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26 July 2001
Billings found this one, A Frightened Boy, a fun Flash animation with a really cool sound track. The story's a little depressing, but still fun.
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25 July 2001
Anyone remember the game "Ace of Aces", a really cool WW1 dog-fighting game using two books. DougEDoug found a page that Analyzes the movement mechanism of the game.
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24 July 2001
In a fit of 'small world itis', Rasty (a tuba player I knew down in VA many years ago) is up in the Pittsburgh area doing some work for the company that shares space with Digital-Mission, where I have badgertronics colocated. On the wplug IRC channel he was looking for some safety glasses, which reminded me of Carolina Biological, sellers of all kinds of scientific gadgets, chemicals, biological organisms, and educational goodies. Whenever Dad would bring a catalog home from the VA, I'd read one for hours on end. (yes, I was Geek Boy growing up). I was happy to discover that they have an Online Store too.
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From DougEDoug,A non sequitur cartoon apropos for the remaining few at shrinking dot-coms, yours truly included.
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23 July 2001
While waiting for some long-running timed tests to complete, I came across Don't be a Vidiot, a talk Greg Costikyan gave at the 1998 Game Developers Conference, outlining the sheer variety of non-computer games and wondering why the industry is churning out Yet Another Shooter and Yet Another Warcraft knock-off.
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From memepool, Human Spell Check, typos and goofs from for-profit websites. (i prezume dat nun-prophet sights ar exemp from moking.)
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I love the TiBook, but the keyboard is not very durable. I broke my control key today :-( . Most of my tibook use is with Oracle + Linux, usually living in emacs, so the control key gets a lot of abuse. If I didn't have a DBA test coming up soon, I'd call apple to get it serviced. In the MeanTime (luckily), there's a Option key on the other side of the space bar that I never use that's the right size to replace the control key with. It does look a little odd to have two option keys next to each other, though.
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A phrase that'll scare even the bravest person. [Wizard of] Oz Fans in Costume!!!
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Since I'm watching my diet these days, the Glycemic Index (how quickly the carbohydrates in food turn into sugar entering the bloodstream) is of interest. There are some bizarre things on that list. At the bottom of the list is "Nopal prickly pear cactus" (something readily available in wetern pennsylvania...), "Corn tortilla w/desert
ironwood", and Milk + custard + starch +
sugar. Mmm... making me hungry. Snide commentary aside, it's a nice resource to have. Now where did I put my Yakult (fermented milk).
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22 July 2001
Grrrr... I'm in the home stretch studying for the "Networking" portion of the Oracle DBA Certification exam. Right now I'm trying to get "Oracle Names", their bizarro name service feature working so I can get hands-on experience making it work. It looks like it's not supported on Linux. Some pieces are there (such as the namesctl utility for controlling the names server, as well as the "Net 8 Assistant" point-and-grunt interface for configuring stuff supports all the frobs you can twiddle), but some important things (like, oh, the binary for the names server itself!) just aren't there.
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Yesterday Sharlotte & I went to Kennywood with The Gang (kebbin/deb, dave/sue/zack, todd/kathy). We rode rides, got knocked around on some of the rolelrcoasters (poor Sharlotte threw her neck out :-( Probably much to the delight of the chairopractor), got wet on some of the water rides (one ride said "You will get wet on this ride", another one "Raging Rapids" said "You will get soaked on this ride") And they weren't kidding. The weather was *gorgeous* - not too hot, and not humid at all (making drying out from the water rides a possiblity). Alas we never got to ride "Phantom's Revenge". An hour and forty five was a little long to stand out in the sun waiting.
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19 July 2001
It's good to see someone passionate about their food. A Subway Petition, bemoaning the death of the "U-gouge" style of Subway sandwiches in favor of the "Pac-man" style of bread cutting. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's a direct response to the ascent of Blimpie, which has the pac-man cut, and which makes the sandwiches look bigger (whether they are bigger or not is an Opportunity For Reasearch), and you must admit that in Amurrica, the bigger looking, the better.
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From Billings, Common Logic Fallacies. See how many of these you can spot in typical Washington political rhetoric. What also would be fun is seeing how many you can use in meetings during the workday.
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Controversy rages. In the song "Bingo", is Bingo the Dog, or is Bingo the Farmer? The m0nk3y thinks that it refers to the dog. Chunks (and me) on the other hand beleive it is the dog, as witnessed by this authoritative net . evidence.
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Chunks sent along this Masterful MIDI rendition of the Axel/F theme from the 80's.
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18 July 2001
Joel of Joel on Software is back, and has an article on why Good software takes 10 years to write.
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Found on the wplug.org mailing list, Denial of Service Attacks, a fascinating description of a denial of service attack and the detective work in fixing it. Also includes a description of how Microsoft really doesn't grok security.
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I love the arsDigita sysadmins. They're one of the coolest groups of folks I've worked with. These are courtesy of The Heavener, after I posted a ticket asking for Yet More away.com cobrands in Mongo Style (e.g. "Mongo need dns. Mongo need powerful men to edit named.conf file. Mongo Thank!"). In return, I got links to Mongo Village (most disturbing), Mongo Man (making me hungry), More Mongo Man (superhero), Mongo, spoken in the Congo (but not by Bongo), and Alex Karras. Not sure his relationship to Mongo, outside maybe the "wha? huh?" expression.
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17 July 2001
I forgot where I saw this, but Death due to smoking as a public benefit. Sure, people die from smoking, but think of how much governments can save in pensions and retirement benefits.
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Sometimes Babelfish Translated Pages turn out Weird and Wonderful
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Stolen from Mike's Weblog, Which Religion is Right for my Complexion. Turns out given my taste in fashion and poresize that I should be an Episcopalian.
Rely on the little black
dress of religion -
Episcopalianism! You are
a passionate person, too
busy for the muss and fuss
of fashion OR religion.
Sure you buy it in a box,
but does that mean that
you can't both look AND
feel good? Mais non!
The architecturally
correct lighting in liberal
churches is forgiving to
your complexion. Not only
does it minimize pore size
but it bathes you in a glow
of chic immediacy. You are
SO here and now.
Functionality and utility mix
successfully with classic
forms.
Liberal issues provide
you with something to talk
about besides tax shelters
and working out and
soften the edges of your
utilitarian (not unitarian!)
nature. You have a
tendency towards thin
nails and hair which could
be mitigated by adding
butter or other solid fats to
your diet. Remember,
Christ fulfilled the law. God
wants your coat to be
shiny!
That is like so, like me.
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16 July 2001
Billings pointed me a tar file with more Spike Bike postings. I moved them here for your violent bicycling pleasure. Thanks to Dale Moore for the original tarfile.
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Rzolf sent me his latest self portrait, as well as a page of disturbing Japanese keychains.
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Found on slashdot, Why Shower Curtains Billow. It's ny times, so requires a free registration. You can make one without supplying any Real Info.
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From monkeyass, a perl script that converts to (and from!) Kennyspeak.
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12 July 2001
The winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Ficntion Contest (the 'try to come up with a horrid first line for a novel' contest) have been posted. Many good entries, including some of the Dishonorable Mentions, such as
My first night with Anastasia was the kind of magical, passionate ride
that left me with my pants on the back of the kitchen chair, my
underwear on the chandelier, my socks in the toilet, my hair on the door
handle, half of my artificial leg somewhere in the pantry, my kidney in a
Coleman ice chest on its way to the Moroccan black market, and my car
in a Tijuana auto repair shop with new, red, diamond-tuck interior.
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Form memepool, The South: where is it? What is it?, a breakdown of what states actually constitute "The South", based on various stereotypical criteria.
I think my favorite graph is states mentioned in country music lyrics
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11 July 2001
Speaking of bicycling, Tour De Donut, 1995, found on Martin's Strange Stories page. Freeing a booted car is also amusing.
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From memepool, The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. be sure to check out the Devices
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10 July 2001
Ooooh - new Babylon 5 Stories. An appropriately vacuous TV Guide blurb on the new SciFi Channel spinoff movie, and The official site.
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this morning(evening) Rzolf mentioned a bizarre video game he played a year ago (and can't get the music out of his head yet), Parappa the Rapper, you rap. From the description:
points are
awarded accordingly and progress is monitored on the
'Rapometer' which gauges the player's performance from
Awful to Cool.
...
the final level showing Parappa rappin' at a live
concert with the famous MC King Kong Mushi himself to a
packed auditorium.
That sounds so weird that I want to try it. Also, you can get Sheet Music
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From a posting on the balloonhq mailing list, A Modern Baby.
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Random babbling while I'm waiting for openssl to compile on a slow machine; if you wish to ignore it.
Last friday I had a bad attack of hives (usually life-stress coupled with some food allergy). Before heading into digital-mission to repair my colobox, I had blood drawn, and I got a phone-report of the results today. Apparently everything was OK, save for high blood sugar (107, where 105 is the recommended whatever), and high triglycerides (405, with 200 being the recommended whatever). If anyone can translate that into something I can understand, I'd appreciate it. In the Mean Time, I figure it's the clue phone saying to tweak my diet (I'm pretty low-fat, low-animal products save for cheese and yogurt) and increase the exercise thing. Or I should say start doing the exercise thing.
So far my exercise regime is a walk with the spousal unit and a friend around a local park three times a week, assuming weather and schedules cooperate (in reality it's more like one to two times a week), and so far that's it for me. Our swimming pool (which we got with the housE) is closed due to electrical problems in the house (and we've very bad procrastinators, so we don't have any idea when that'll be addressed), and I'm terrified of powered lawn equipment. So I tend to stay in the shade and work / take care of web sites / read.
Now that the clue phone has rung, it's time to do something. At a gig last sunday at a garden tour, we discovered that Patti (the community band directory) is a bicyclist, and that she and her hubby go biking just about every weekend. I love bicycling, but doing the human powered transport (biking to the grocery store, for instance) is suicidal given the density of rednecks, big trucks, and rednecks in big trucks. So I haven't done it much. Back in virginia I lived right next to the Washington and Old Dominon Trail, a 45 mile rails-to-trails path that cuts through the area which allows a lot of travel to happen off of major roads.
Patti told us that there's a rails-to-trails closer in to Pittsburgh, which was enough to induce me to get the bike out of the store room. The next question is 'how to get into some kind of shape wihtout getting squished on the road'. I've got some rollers that I used during winter months, which also came out of mothballs. If you've never been on rollers, they're a real treat. It's like riding on ice (note there's no place to anchor the bike). After much wandering around the yard (avoiding getting stung near a hornet's nest in the pavillion), I found a place where I can use the rollers (I need to be able to lean against a wall to get started), and managed to have a sustained 3 minute workout. (hey! I'm out of shape, OK? Plus the concentration factor involved when riding on rollers is insane) Not surprising, I feel pretty good right now, so here's hoping I can maintain the effort. My carrot is if I can do a week of 10 minute session, I'll reward myself with one of those little mp3 players. Rollers get dull pretty quickly, and trying to ride with a small cd player strapped to you is an exercise in frustration. (plus there's no handy power outlet to bring out a radio)
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9 July 2001
Spotted on a comment on flutterby (I really need to upgrade badgertronics and add some commenting stuff. obRant for another day), Search Voyeurs, peek in on search engine searches people are doing. The Epicurious.com one is cool. 7-Up Jello Salad and meringue Kisses.
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7 July 2001
Not sure where I found The Filthy Critic, but he seems to share my attitude about the recent (as in the last 10 years) crop of hollywood dreck. His reviews are rude and profanity-strewn, yet still make a lot of sense. He seems to be a Felini fan, so he can't be all bad.
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Greetings! My loyal fan probably noticed a day's worth of downtime. badgertronics.com got compromised on frday morning while I was at the doctor getting my fresh case of hives looked at :-(. Things should be pretty much working. Needless to say it put a big damper on my weekend coding frenzy. If anyone knows rzolf's contact info in Japan, could they let me know what it is?
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6 July 2001
Holy morbidity Batman! Leading causes of death. Through the power of Web magic, you can get customized reports based on area and age groups. Luckily I don't see "covered in hives" on the top-10 list.
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5 July 2001
While running an errand to make some copies of music, I was listening to a Pittsburgh Classic Oldies station. I heard Aretha Franklin's "Respect", and was shocked to discover that she's a network protocol engineer! Towards the end of the song, there's a break where she says "R-E-S-P-C-T, Find out what it means to me, R-E-S-P-C-T, IP/TCP. socket to me socket to me socket to me..." etc.
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From flutterby, Flasher the Clown, yet another reason why clows are creepy.
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From Chunks. It may have been on July fourth, but the Japanese have us beat in mass consumption of the all-american holiday treat.
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4 July 2001
New month, new TroubleShooting Professional Magazine. This month Steve talks about Grassroots Linux and some trade shows he and his LUG were involved in. There's an amusing LUG (Linux Users Group) vs Microsoft story in the middle.
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I had always wondered about the difference between Quakers and Shakers.
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Aaron Swartz, the young wunderkind I've had the pleasure of interacting with recently has some interesting ideas and comments on the idea of Unschooling.
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3 July 2001
From memepool. Carthedral, the Cadillac of rolling Gothic cathedrals.
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From jo2y, "The talking, animatronic clam packed with tons of attitude". No, it's not the giant space clams of Scientology. It's much, much more horrifying. Shelby, Furby's girlfriend.
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2 July 2001
From Slashdot, Building a a quiet PC. I don't like running my desktop PC unit (necessary to play Black & White) very long because it is quite noisy. My favorite computer gadgets in the house are my airport base station and the isdn router. They're both absolutely silent. No hard drives, no fans, just... quiet.
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From memepool, The World's Coolest 404 page
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30 June 2001
From jo2y (I think), Computer stupidity, real-life tech support stories from the trenches.
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Stolen from memepool today: Periodic Fiction, someone writing a new short story every week based on elements of the periodic table. (huh?) I must admit to being amused by Lithium.
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29 June 2001
More stuff from Brian Bull. This one I hadn't read before. Last Meal of the Apocalypse. It's a short poem - be sure to read it all the way to the end.
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Today was one of those "hard to work up the motivation to work" kind of days. When that mood strikes, I randomly surf the net and annoy folks like DougEDoug and Rzolf. Sometime during the day, a meme tickled my brain which reminded me "you haven't read Day of the Barney in a while", a most disturbing (yet sickly amusing) tale of Barney's rise to power, the defeat of his greusome plans, and subsequent return. Using Google, much to my horror, I came across the Author's Site, who had taken down the story due to pressure from the Barney Lawyers. Not wanting to see such a Great and Important work of Literature like "Day of the Barney" lapse into obscruity, I managed to find an intact copy, and am keeping a copy here. I beleive that the author has the fundamental right to keep this story on the net since parody is covered by the First Amendment.
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After playful banter in the #wplug IRC channel, I came up with the name "slashdork" to describe the venerable slashdot.org. Then I decided to actually follow slashdork.org. As DougEDoug so eloquently put it, "undoubtedly created by somebody who embodies the /. demographic".
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jo2y has created a Patch to the Linux 2.4.5 kernel which addresses important internationalization concerns (specifically some kernel message related to Swedish localization of error messages)
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DougEDoug found a flag article by the North American Vexillogical Association, which ranked the Pennsylvania State Flag near the bottom of its aesthetics list. It is pretty horrid. Luckily, Arkansas was ranked around 45, which is where it usually is in most rankings (quality of education, collective wealth, etc)
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Spotted on memepool, Using plastic to melt pennies. Since we've got a lot of open land out at the farm, I wonder what we could do with a ten-foot fresnel lens .
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28 June 2001
Spotted on slashdot, Deconstruction of Loch Ness Monster Pictures. Personally, I'm a subscriber to the "giant space haggis" theory.
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From memepool, Britney Exposed!
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27 June 2001
Gig Alert: The Kiski Valley Community Band is playing this Saturday at 8:00pm at (oh my God, they killed) Kennywood. Featuring yours truly doing the Piccolo solo in Stars N Stripes Ferever (on trombone). Our regular piccolo player can't make the gig, and the Pretty Young Flute Players in the group are too chicken to try it.
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Enna found a Hand (crank) powered webserver, the perfect solution to the geek involved in the rolling blackouts. I like where the serial port ended up.
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From memepool, someone who takes the Transformers way too seriously. You can use Babelfish to translate it from the original Portugese.
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MonkeyAss posted a link to the Think Geek Swiss Army Knife. Included in the rapturous description is this:
Made by Victorinox, this
ultra-sleek, hella-nifty pocket
knife is the perfect tool for all the
right reasons. How many knifes
out there have a DIP switch
setter
Looking at the Spec Sheet, we see:
15.Ball Point Pen
16.DIP Switch Setter (use
pen)
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Stay off the sidewalks! Miss Erin has her drivers license! Aieeee!!! (and frightningly enough, it's a pretty good picture on it)
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One of the weirder concepts I've seen out there was spotted on MacSlash. Macintosh HD, what are the names you give to your Mac's hard drive instead of the boring default name of "Macintosh HD". Me, I usually name them after cats. The powerbook is Wizzel, the TiBook is Poohbah, and the desktop is Hoover.
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From an internal arsdigita bulletin board, a tour of the JUnit unit testing framework by the authors. A guided tour of the guts of the package.
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The Story of Slashdot's weekend outage.
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26 June 2001
Billings sent along a pointer to a Illustrated Taxonomy of Internet Flame Warriors
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DougEDoug is getting into the narcissistic brain dump weblog thing too. Check out Doug's Stream 'o Trivia (doesn't seem to work with older mac netscapes)
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DougEDoug sent me to the mapquest aerial photos. Wicked-cool. Here is Chez Bork. Find the 4 white blobs to the south of the where the highway splits. We're the southern-most blob. If you just get a regular map, click the 'aerial photo' tab. Thanks again to DougEDoug for correcting my spelling on that. I don't know why "aieral" looked right. Maybe it's my Multiple Typosis again.
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Shamlessly stolen from flutterby. The Shaggy Dog Story Archive. Some of these are real brilliant/stinkers depending on your opinion of shaggy dog stories.
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25 June 2001
I am in work-avoidance mode. Playing around with the google image search, I came across this, live-action scooby doo. Buffy the vampire slayer along with Mister Bean. *shudder*
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Spotted on an OpenACS bboard, Google image searching. Searching for "mark dalrymple" gives some, uh, interesting results. But, European Badger returns some nice pictures.
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Found on Slashdot, Moving Egyptian Obelisks by Kite. I for one am happy to see research like this succeeding. I'm not big on the theories that the hand of God built the pyramids, or that space aliens did it, or it was purely by brute force. Humans (collectively) are smarter than that, and the Ancients should be given proper credit for their accomplishments, rather than trying to explain it away with mythology.
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From memepool, Mister Nice, who just can't stop dancing. (unlike the Kompressor!, of course). A groovy flash animation, upon which I am digging the soundtrack. word!
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One of the OpenACS dudes who runs Felix.org has a useful FAQ of random knowledge. There's also a cool Go tutorial
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DougEDoug sent me these lyrics to I'm my own Grandpa. And I thought I had a hard enough time keeping track of Sharlotte's (much simpler) family tree
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24 June 2001
Found on memepool, Cannibals and Missionaries, a flash game allowing you to live the classic logic problem. Mmm.... missionaries taste like chicen.
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Found this on Flutterby, September Morn, where fanatic "protectors of american values" are manipulated to sell a pretty inoccuous print.
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22 June 2001
DougEDoug sent this from the onion, Northern Irish, Serbs, Hutus granted homeland in the West Bank.
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arsTechnica is running a review of a cute little tiny computer, which looks like it'd be cool for a small server box. The review is also the most bizarre I've seen on arsTechnica, running the gamut from video and memory bandwidth benchmarks to apartment break ins to which of the Dukes of Hazzard boys is more dashing.
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While chatting with DougEDoug today, I was reminded about the synergy between The Marine's Hymn and the theme from Gilliagan's Island You can use the tune from one to the words of the other. Be sure to sing them both in the presence of lots of US Marines, and tell me what happens.
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Chunks sent me to Roadside America, Muffler Men, which in places is disturbing. Although the uniroyal girl is, as rzolf would say, "hot".
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21 June 2001
Billings forwarded on this link Quaternion Buttons, and a brief description of the math behind each button.
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Found on Macintouch, Rental cars using GPS to identify speeders. It also shows the primary reason why I hate debit cards. At least with credit cards the Offending Party doesn't have possession of your funds.
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20 June 2001
found on memepool, LaserMame hooking Mame vector games to a laser system. You could play on the side of buildings if you wanted to.
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Snugs sent me a link to the Myers-Briggadoon Personality Test. Turns out I'm an ISFJ. A Protector (which is spookily on-target) archetype. Here's another ISFJ analysis.
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19 June 2001
I've been meaning to write this up all day, but work got in the way.
Last night our house was the center of attention of the local emergency services community. At around 8:45, we heard a crash outside. Sharlotte poked her head out the door. To the right the electrical lines were swinging. To the left was a red pickup truck sitting in our gully with smoking coming out of the hood. Being the crass tacky american that I am, here is a picture, after the driver was extricated (it was dark, so apologies for the picture quality)
I called 911 and started tearing up the house for Sharlotte's Jump Bag (her personal EMT kit) while she went out to assess the situation. She saw the driver unconcious in the front seat covered in blood. Not having rubber gloves, she look around the cab and found some work gloves ("at least it was some insulation") and started applying some traction to his head. The cops showed up (with some gloves) and had 911 expidited. Eventually the ambulance showed up and started treating the guy, allowing Sharlotte a chance to wash off the blood.
And then more emergency vehicles showed up. another cop or two (for traffic control), a fire engine (in case the car exploded), a heavy rescue unit or two (jaws of life, baby), and a couple more ambulances.
He was taken to a local hospital. The ambulance drivers weren't optimistic about his chances :-(
Our neighbors Bob and Marjie (the ones across the bridge) came over to make sure we were OK - they could see the lights of the emergency vehicles from their place.
This accident was very strange. There was no squealing of brakes. Just a single big noise. He managed to drive through the neighbor's neighbor's yard (missing a fence), through the neighbor's yard (missing a fence and a gas meter), and into our yard, missing our fence, but clipping our electric pole. The investigators were easily there 2 hours measuring and doing whatever it is that investigators do. The conclusion at the end of the evening was that he probably had a stroke or a heart attack and was unconcious when he hit.
After the investigation was over, and most of the tonnage of emergency vehicles were sent home, the tow truck driver came in to remove the vehicle (you can see how deep the gully is there). Sharlotte & I were standing around with an EMS person and a young trainee (the trainee is the grainy blob to the left). We watch in horror as the toe truck driver hoisted the truck up and crawled underneath it doing whatever it is that toe truck drivers do. And, of course, the truck slipped from the cables and fell a couple of feet. It didn't crush the guy, though, but sure gave the rest of us a scare.
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18 June 2001
The Spark is at it again. Date My Sister.
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MSNBC censoring MS-critical news, imagine that.
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Eeep! Found on Macintouch, Macintosh Cluster, running simulations of Extreme Plasma Physics. 5GFlops of powerPC action.
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15 June 2001
The downtime for badgertronics was longer than I had hoped. I know I'm cursed when it comes to dealing with hardware - anything that should be simple and routine turns into a horror of various degrees of horribleness. Badgertronics had two 9 gig scsi drives. The non-OS drive (which has the pageroot of the websites and user home directories, and some database files) flaked out earlier this month so it was scheduled for replacement before it failed completely.
Finding a scsi drive locally was a PITA. I don't know many mom-n-pop hole in the wall computer stores around here, the ones I went to just looked quizzically, and the megastores like GrumpUSA and BeastBuy don't carry scsi drives. I eventually ordered one from Mac/PCConnection (the only mail-order place worth dealing with since they actually honor the "please don't send me a catalog" flag in their database, but that's a rant for another day)
I got the drive, burned it in over a couple of days with my home machine (running 5 parallel find /drive -exec gzip {} and gunzip processess to give it a good dose of abuse). The drive got formatted and partitioned like the failing drive on badgertronics. It should be as simple back up data, remove sucking drive, put in new drive, copy data over, reassemble the case, and go have a leisurly lunch.
Ha! Friday morning I drove to Digital Mission, my colocation place. (they're awesome if you're looking for reasonably priced coloation), about 1:30 away. MonkeyAss got the machine out of the server room, I copied the data from the dying drive to some free space on the OS drive, opened the case up, removed the old drive (which made a noise like a circular saw. quite frightening), put in the new one, and then restarted the machine.
Scsi timeouts making the second drive not mount (in fact it halted the boot process). After several hours of tweaking scsi hardware parameters, checking terminations, changing IDs, the solution came down to either installing a new kernel (which I didn't want to do since I have some finicky software behind the scenes here), or breaking down and getting an IDE drive.
So, MonkeyAss & I went to BeastBuy, got a Maxtor IDE drive, installed it, and things work fine. I'm just a bit nervous though, having a drive here that's fresh out of the box without any previous abuse under controlled circumstances.
That looks like enough whining for now, so I won't mention the parking ticket, the extra hour stuck in traffic on the way back, smashing a finger in the sceen door coming home, nor the plague of locusts; that'd just be too depressing. Luckily we met some friends at Bonnie's Comfort Food Emporium afterwards, and we all lived happily ever after. The End.
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Rzolf reminded me about Slow Wave, a "comic strip" that illustrates dreams that people send him. The one this week was very cool, involving my personal hero, Mister T.
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I'm replacing one of the hard drives in the machine that runs badgertronics.com, so things will probably be broken sometime today. Wheeeee!
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14 June 2001
Beep pointed me at Xpogen, yet another genomics company. I came across their product page, and nearly died laughing. Bio-Intuitive Web Interface indeed!
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13 June 2001
Found on Flutterby, a pointer to Speedle which had a pointer to An open letter to Dr. Laura. Something to keep handy when ignorant folks try to use the book of Leviticus to advance their own agenda.
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Memepool has a couple of good links on it today. The first is The World's Most Mentally Ill Job Resume, and the second is GNO, Unix for the Apple II. To tell the truth, I'm not sure which is the more insane.
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Another photo essay from Leader Kibo, Dumb Toys, Gallery 1: Star Wars. Oh the horrors Darth Vader has been subjected to (even before Episode 1!)
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jo2y posted a pointer to Leader Kibo's Treatise on Cones. This also reminded me that I had composed a brief play with Leader Kibo. Waiting for Kibo.
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12 June 2001
Memepool had a pointer to a site that shows what your site looks like to the colorblind. It only works with simple sites (e.g. without frames or stylesheets)
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Rzolf sent me this bit about some bizarre japanese television, complete with mini-sermon at the end.
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I love astronomy, especially the mass-market "look at the pretty pictures" Cosomos(tm) billyuns and billyuns variety. Slashdot ran a story about some guy who hooked up a webcam to his telescope, complete with pretty pictures.
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11 June 2001
From the s0ckm0nk3y, HonkeyTime, protrait of the average american redneck. The scary thing is I grew up with a lot of these, and quite a number live around here too.
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10 June 2001
Billings' MonkeyBot is a friendly and valued member of the #wplug IRC channel (over on openprojects.net. Swing on by and say "What you say!") Much to my horror, the monkeybot has been seen MoonLighting, spreading much horror across the US. Such as "The monkey pours several bottles of vodka into the
punch at an AA meeting in Essex Junction, Vermont." and "The monkey plays the bassoon in public in
Waterbury, Connecticut." (oh, the horror).
Note that some browsers can't handle the game (the folks that did it put an <input type=submit> tag inside of the <select> for the number of moves to make. d'oh.
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In one of the more bizarre celebrity deathmatch things I've seen, Charlie Brown and Snoopy vs. Wallace and Gromit. Personally, I think Gromit can kick Snoopy's fluffy white butt from here to Chelmsford's Way, but that's just me.
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Over on the #wplug IRC channel, a debate was raging about whether adding salt to water raises or lowers the boiling point. MonkeyAss pointed us to an Epicurious tip. An hour later I got done reading too many cooking tips.
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9 June 2001
I came across Vinod in the #openacs IRC channel over on openprojects. Way-cool guy, and some fun stuff on his homepage. I like his book club thing (and second his recommendation of the book Your Money or Your Life).
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8 June 2001
Found on memepool, A Chess Glossary, so you can find out what those chess terms really mean. e.g.
Correspondence Chess: a system of play which in gaining in
popularity because you cannot lose USCF rating points in this
sort of competition; a method of play to determine who owns the
strongest chess computer.
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From browsing Ask Tom, New Stuff in Oracle 9i
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7 June 2001
DougEDoug sent this one along. Quit Slashdot Today. A 12 step program for weaning yourself off of Slashdot.
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Hot Diggity Damn!! I finally got Oracle Working on Linux under Virtual PC on my Mac. Here are some sketchy notes on what I did.
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Another one from Yodaya, about his father playing The World's Biggest Tuba.
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6 June 2001
From MonkeyAss, a picture over at MonkeyBagel, The New O'Reilly System Administration Book
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jwz takes on Web Design.
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5 June 2001
Gig Alert: Well, not me but for Sharlotte. She's playing in the Community Side-by-Side with the Pittsburgh Symphony on Thursday the 7th at 7:00pm at Heinz
Hall. Also, you can probably imagine what went through my mind when I saw the blurb for This Concert.
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From MonkeyAss, Peregrine falcon outside of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh.
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4 June 2001
Yodaya sent me this scan of a cartoon of Tuba Man.
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I'm back from Boston / New Hampster. I'll post a trip report later. In the mean time, a Non Sequitur political cartoon, from Billings.
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1 June 2001
New month, new Troubleshooting Professional Magazine. This time Steve takes on Customer Service
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31 May 2001
While waiting to be stood up for a lunch date, I came across this on memepool, The Worlds Only Ass-Kicking Machine, probably coming soon to a dot-com office near you.
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30 May 2001
I'm up in Cambridge, MA this week for some work stuff. Against rzolf's recommendations, I stopped by Quantum Books, a local technical book store (I love geek book stores, having worked within close walking distance of a Computer Literacy store in VA). Rzolf was right in that it was kind of lame - not a whole lot of selection beyond what you can ge at Barnes -n- Ignoble. They did have Planning Extreme Programming, a smallish book (especially compared to the Teach Yourself Java in 24 minutes for dummies 1500 page behemoths). This is one of the first books in a long time that I've read cover-to-cover in one sitting. I'm fascinated by the whole Extreme Programming (SURGE!!!!) thing (although the name is horrible). Unfortunatly, working essentially from home alone makes one of the central tenants (pair programming) impossible; and the environent I'm currently in (Tcl webserver scripts) make the other pillar of XP (unit-test driven development and continual automated testing) nearly impossible. Maybe I can take that course at Big Nerd Ranch and find some West Leechburgers interested in doing desktop apps...
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Something PhilG spanned the company with. The Legacy of Eve Andersson, about her site being one of the first web logs, and then a social commentary on web logs in geenral.
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29 May 2001
I know I've listed Screen It before, but I need to list them again. From their Review of Shrek (which everyone should go see), under the Profanity EnumerationAt least 3 damns (1 in a song), 2 asses, 1 crap, 2 uses of "Oh God" and 1 use of "Oh
my God" as exclamations.
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Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam. Found via Slashdot, SPAM vs Spam, Hormel accepts the dual use of the term Spam.
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From Kuro5hin, The Apple iPad, speculative research on what the next Big Apple Thing will be.
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Another from the s0ckm0nk3y. Monkey Call Ebay Item. Somewhat appropriate considering the prominent donkey in Shrek.
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28 May 2001
New Content: Wow. I actually have new content around here other than me passing on other people's links. Bridge Building, some friends come over to build a bridge in early May.
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While reading the ACS Workflow documentation, I came across WTFK, an open-source workflow package. What's cool is that this story is hosted at IBM, talks about pros and cons of open source software, and the package comes with a UI based on AOLserver.
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Ordinarily I don't post links to p0rn sites, but this one just kinda wigs me out. Balloon Fetish. I'm sure Chunks would like this one.
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The Spark has some new content (although the newsletter I got
was dated April 2001...). The Stress Test. I'm pretty stress free, scoring just 14%. I can get to the next lower level of stressitude by becoming unconcious.
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25 May 2001
From DougEDoug, Digital Paper that's actually paper.
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Bern pointed me at the The Lion and Lamb Project, to help reduce the amount of violence that is marketed to children.
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24 May 2001
Found on Flutterby, The Museum of Depressionist Art
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I've been going through my CD collection converting them to mp3s (up to 2 days, 16 hours so far), and came across my Dixie Power Trio album. If you ever have a chance to see these guys live, do so. They're a four member trio, a drummer, tuba, and two guys that play everything else (electric banjo, washboard, trumpet, accordian). Here's a sample of their work, SpiderMan.
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Enna sent me to Chronicles of George, featuring a set of trouble tickets I hope I never see.
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Wow. Some Good News about ArsDigita in the press. Therefore the company will implode in 3 months and my vested options will be worthless.
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23 May 2001
The Spousal Overunit pointed me at New Music Cultivation Fund, a way of encourgaging the commissioning of new musical works. It sounds like a great idea. One clause sounds a bit odd, "At the present time, this grant is available for commissioning music from award-winning
composer, Sy Brando" I just wonder if it's just a vehicle so that award-winning composer Sy Brando gets more work.
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The s0ckm0nk3y inflicted this upon me. I'm passing along the joy. Be sure to put it on auto-repeat.
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Classic Gaming reviews the first computer (video) game, SpaceWar. (I'm sure stuff like Hunt the Wumpus predated spacewar)
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Yet another goodie for you All Your Base fans. DougEDoug, in trying to fix a problem with his Airport wireless basestation in his home network discovered a workaround, with quite an amusing title and copyright policy.
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22 May 2001
From MonkeyAss, IPN, the interplanetary internet project, for when we finally invade Mars
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Wheee, I'm back. The Conductor's Conference was a little more time-consuming than I expected (both days were 7 'til midnight days, ended up doing 3 concerts, 5 or 6 rehearsals, plus lots of stage crew duty setting up and tearing down rehersal and performance rooms for the two high/middle school honors bands at the gig).
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Not really a joke, but amusing nontheless. O'Reilly books on tape
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Some folks I know have founded IMfuse, a cool IM gateway technology. Be sure to check out their word guessing game. AIM IMfuseGaming for a taste. Also AIM IMfuseCorp for another demo(e).
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Chunks sent me All your Smurf.
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DougEDoug sent me the url to this Doonesbury Cartoon with important advice for today's economy.
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I wish I had an extra week in my life and an extra $3500. Big Nerd Ranch sounds like a fantastic experience. Become a Mac OS X Cocoa (a.k.a. NeXTstep) expert in a week.
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16 May 2001
DougEDoug sent me a pointer to the UNSPSC, the Universal Standard Classification of Goods and Services. DougEDoug says it best:This is a fascinating
taxonomy of commodity codes for everything from "geosynchronous satellites"
(24141709) to "fresh meat and poultry" (50111510) to "wireless base
stations" (43171701) to "bouncer seats or jumpers" (56101807) and even
"unicycles" (25161502)...
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Gig Alert: I'll be in Northern Virginia this week at the Mid Atlantic Wind Conductor's Conference (Put on by Mark "Dork" "Smuc-D" "One letter away from Normal" Norman). A band I occasionally play in (Riverside Wind Symphony) will be doing a brief concert on Saturday (3:00) at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Sunday 10:35 am Service at Riverside Presbyterian, and a 7:00 concert at Broad Run.
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From flutterby, Making small change smaller through the magic of electricty
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14 May 2001
From MonkeyAss, aids for Geek Hygiene
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13 May 2001
While thinking about Leader Kibo, here is His HappyWeb (98) Manifesto, of which some of it seems to be coming true. Permablink rules!
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Leader Kibo has posted a Tribute to Douglas Adams.
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12 May 2001
Today was the local linux user's group (wplug installfest; where folks bring in their computers and we try to get linux working. It's also an opportunity for some of the group old-timers to play with new stuff, help newbies, and generally hang around. Some of the fun of today's installfest was wplug radio. xf86 and RageMax brought some microphones and a mixing board. After many configuration nightmares, they finally got it working on zman's machine, giving us a little live icecast network. Much hilarity ensued as folks were doing the Kompressor song into the microphone, hearing the various machines around the room play the results at different times (due to variying amounts of stream pre-buffering)
My task for the day was getting redhat installed on Virtual PC (it worked!) after many many reinstalls. (RedHat 7.1 failed hard after the install was nearly done. RH 6.2 locked up at boot time. RH 6.1 seems to work ok) and then install Oracle. I got most of the way through the Oracle installation before realizing I didn't have a Java component (damn!) and it was time to head home. Alas I'm now not able to get the Virtual PC networking in Linux working on my local network (*sob*), so I'll need to figure something else out.
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If the MS XP Slogan is "It just works", here are slogans for the previous versions.
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Spotted over on MacEdition, Dell Inferion, the power to toast the other kids.
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11 May 2001
For the All-your-Base fans, All Your 404 are belong to us.
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10 May 2001
Speech, on the web.
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In times of spiritual distress, remember to reflect upon What Would Journey Do?
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For some computer nostalgia, Virutal Punchards
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Stolen from Flutterby, if you're in the aircraft industry be sure to Read the Directions.
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9 May 2001
I found this in the memepool Wackos file, Alisa's Cosplay, where 'Cosplay' is dressing up like anime characters.
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I found this most amusing. National Bestseller, where a guy has promised to wrote a novel in a month, or else give all his money to a Cause he doesn't like. What's also amusing is that this is an ACS 4.2 site, and was built in two days.
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8 May 2001
SeanY dropped me a line with some of the History of Tranquility, with its origins on SGI IRIX (5.3 probably), along with some pointers to other SGI games available on other platforms.
http://bzflag.sourceforge.net/
BZFlag is a networked tank game. You can play in teams.
You can join a clan and fight against others. The basic
premise is "Capture the Flag" + rendering your enemies
into dead polygons.
http://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/AndyBattalion.html
Battalion tagline: "Monsters, explosions, senseless
destruction. You've seen the movies, you know what to do."
Cute monsters, more dead polygons.
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7 May 2001
From Chunks, Eugene Mirman, the amazing crooning youth. Also includes other stuff.
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I'm not much of a computer gamer, but I've come across two really cool games. Tranquility on the macintosh is a completely abstract game, involving flying around a world of geometric shapes playing hide and seek with yet another geometric shape, all the while listening to soothing new age music. Apple has a review including a large quicktime movie. The other I've gotten hooked on is Black & White. At the Wplug Meeting (where the Kompressor Does Not Dance), a lot of folks wer talking about B&W, picking up villagers and throwing them into the ocean, dropping rocks on them, and all sorts of mayhem, so I picked it (and a 3D card) up over the weekend. It's a pretty spectacular game.
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5 May 2001
EvanD and some of the wplug game pointed me at Kompressor. Be sure to find out why Kompressor Does Not Dance.
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4 May 2001
New month, new Troubleshooting Professional. This time he doesn't concentrate on computers, but on automobile repair.
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From the b5/jms mailing list, a quote by Mark Twain.
"It is a given that Man is the noblest of all god's creatures. But you have to
ask, who discoverd that?"
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One of the downsides of living where we do is that there is a soft-serve ice-cream place within walking distance. It's called "Bonnie's", and they have the usual 97 varieties of soft-serve goodies, as well as an assortment of tasty and high-fat comfort foods. One thing that's been mildly disturbing is watching the physical properties of the soft-serve. It has some adhesive / elastic properties that one would typically only find in truly artifical "food" forms like twinkies and Cheeze Whiz.
Fer instance. The "small" size at Bonnies is a regular ice cream cone with a stack of swirls about the size of a small squirrel. Having witnessed a medium, it's a stack of soft-serve swirls about the size of a small rat. I haven't witnessed a "large" but I can imgine it's at least the size of a well-fed weasel. Dipping the cone (in a chocolaty substance) involves inverting the cone, dipping, and letting it drain for about 30 seconds. During the course of this operation, the cone contents do not shift. Nothing stretches or breaks off. You can hold the cones in a horizontal plane and they're remarkably stable. if it weren't so enjoyable, I'd almost be worried what it does to my innards.
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From jo2y, Nipples Online, including Nipples LIVE, pictures, and more!
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3 May 2001
From Billings, more on the Ninja kick, How to hide your Ninja Lifestyle from your Co-Workers
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Spotted on memepool, "Am I going down?". I'm heading to Boston later this month. I have a 1 in 24,7171,430 chance of not making it back. It's been nice knowing you folks. *sniff*.
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You want Ninja Burger! Yes! Ninja burger you get! Now you! Order! Yes!
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From Andrew's Eggpost, a pointer to his robots.txt file. I highly recommend EggPost. It includes such gems as
There's a boy made completely of wrapping paper, all different kinds.
So he looks like a normal boy, but instead of skin and blood, he is
just wrapping paper. All different colors of wrapping paper, and his
eyes are made out of really bunched up wrapping paper. [...]
The wrapping paper boy likes to do things normal boys do, like throwing
balls, eating candy and playing tuba, but he can't surf, because if he
gets wet he has to go to the wrapping paper doctor. One day the
wrapping paper boy met an old man made of wrapping paper. They went and
ate pizza, and drank glue.
--------------
SEE! You are totally picturing the wrapping paper boy having pizza with
the wrapping paper elderly. And I made you think it just using
internet! That's crazy!
You can get on eggpost by going to http://andrew.notifylist.com/eggpost.html
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From the s0ckm0nk3y, call 1 (877) 338-6747. Don't know if it's a telephone number scraper, but it's amusing.
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Other good ones from Billings, Pokethulhu and the Pokenomicon
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2 May 2001
xf86 in the Wplug IRC room pointed us at Learn2: Help a Hangover
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1 May 2001
From a dude at arsdigita, Some Features you may need on your computer. Some of it allows us non-windows users to laugh at those poor sods. muahahahaha.
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30 April 2001
One of my cow-orkers I'm working with on a project contributed to this Tasty Snack page.
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MacSlash had a pointer to a Brief writeup about an OS-X talk given to the Bay Area Next User's group.
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Found ove on slashdot, NASA Contacts Pioneer 10. It boggles my mind that NASA can make contact with a small 29 year old device 7.3 billion miles from earth, and can pick up signals from an *8 watt* transmitter.
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From Chunks, LOBSTER MAGNET, a flash rock video. I'd like an mp3 of that.
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29 April 2001
Spotted over on comp.sys.mac.games.adventure, A Review of Chess by modern game magazine reviewers.
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26 April 2001
While chewing through my CD collection making mp3s out of them, I came across the Savatage "Hall of the Mountain King" CD. This is an unexceptional 80's glam-metal CD, save for one track. Back in College, the student newspaper office was across the hall from the campus radio station. Invariably, on the all-nighter putting a newspaper to bed, the program for the evening from the station was heavy metal, which at that time I didn't like. Except for one evening I heard a rendition of Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" done on guitars, and I had to have it. I tracked down the album, found the track, and here it is
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This morning I just finished reading The Professor and the Madman, upon the recommendation of DougEDoug. Fantastic book, cool story, and exquisite use of the English language. It's a pretty small book (especially compared to some of the Oracle books I have around here) and a pleasant read.
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From memepool. Dance Dance Dance! You can Learn to Dance!
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The Classical Reviews section over at the Flying Inkpot are one of those webbish delights I forget about, and rediscover once every year or two. Their live concert reviews are usually pretty amusing (including audience annoyance factors like coughers and Obligatory Screaming Children)
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I'm cleaning out my personal mailbox, and came across this sent to me by the Emiloid. Words of Wisdom from Itzhak Perlman
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From Billings, The top 10 hot tech stocks to get.
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Treading the fine line between "annoying and dumb" and "mildly amusing" is the Spirits Bring me Some Beer. Maybe this can be part of "Harry Potter LXXXVII - The Ledgend of Harry's Farm" when it comes out.
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24 April 2001
According to This interpretation of a study, I want to live in London when The Bomb drops. Not only will I get tea and biscuits out in Wimbleton, I can work the next day!
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So far, my favorite Top X reasons to adopt Mac OS X
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From DougEDoug, Palm OS contraction timer, for those about to hatch.
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23 April 2001
Carter Weeks, a friend from high school, appeared out of nowhere and sent me a link to his page, The Journey of a Two-Tone Rustbucket, a photodiary chock full of good travel advice
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How to make your own Cola.
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Billings I were chatting about bicycling, which reminded me of Spike Bike, Mad Max on a bicycle, fighting the evil automobile tyrrany.
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More Toast news (which I haven't seen on Dr. Toast yet). From flutterby, Toaster predicts the weather
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Even better than stickfigure Tarot: Hello Tarot
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22 April 2001
Found on memepool, Suicide-resistant toilet. Maybe should be installed at your favorite dot.com.
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Another round of small-world-itis. Balloon Magic magazine ran a cool article on this guy who travels the third world making balloon hats. Turns out that Rzolf knows that guys brother, who is using ACS.
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20 April 2001
From Billings, Spring in Pittsburgh. Even though it wasn't actually photographed in Pittsburgh, it's an Appropraite Statement for most of Western PA.
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Found on memepool, StickFigure Tarot
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19 April 2001
SeanY sent me the abject horror that is StrudelPalooza.
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From Chunks, The Quality Throop. I don't quite understand the history of this, but I enjoyed the memos.
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The ArsDigita soap opera heats up. Slashdot has a story (and the usual insightful *cough* commentary). Guan Yang has pointers to the court documents and a docket update (he's always had an axe to grind with aD, so I'm not surprised). Teadams has a posting of her non-role in the whole thing. Plus three FC bboards.
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18 April 2001
Found on Flutterby, Build it yourself slot-car racing tracks, and you can even race a bird after you've built your dream track. Requires Shlockwave.
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DougEDoug sent me the link to GhostSites, containing the bloated deer carcasses along the inflammation stuporhighway. In among the dead sites shown there is the Real Reason pets.com went under.
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Many C programmers have seen (and been both suitably impressed and horrified by Duff's Device). Tom Duff comments on his technique for loop unrolling.
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Gig Alert: I'm doing Wizard of Oz with Valley HS (in western PA) starting thursday and running through Sunday. The Spousal unit & I were totalling up the number of musicals I had played in over the years: West Side Story (3 or 4 times), 1940's Radio Hour (my only appearance on a stage, as part of a swing band), Gypsy, Gilbert & Sullivan's Yoemen of the Guard and The Mikado (which was 10 performances in a week. Took me a month to de-tox from that much G&S), Mystery of Edwin Drood (twice), Fiddler on the Roof, Into the Woods, Oklahomley, South Pacific, and Zorba.
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Joel on Software takes on software Architecture Junkies in a no-holds barred emperor has no clothes tag-team grudge-match.
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People have asked, "what's it like to work at ArsDigita, outside of having single eyeballs staring at you?". Somehow this picture answers that question better than any words I can think of.
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16 April 2001
"I know [canned music] makes chickens lay more eggs and factory workers
produce more. But how much more can they get out of you on an elevator?" -- Victor Borge.
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13 April 2001
Found on one of my balloon lists, Storytelling, a guide to constructing stories to tell. It's in a sunday school setting, but the ideas look like they should be applicable to any storytelling situation.
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From Billings. Cobra, the Ultimate Answer to the yuppies in minivans that are clogging the highways. Grand Rapper E.D. added "Nice truck - I've seen a writeup in Road and Track or Car and Driver a few years about a similar thing, popular in the middle east. No armor, they want to encourage the gunners to go after the threat rather than hide :-)"
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Apologies in advance to the easily offended. GVD sent me a newspaper article about an Omaha church that's basing their Easter services on the classic-TV show Cheers. I know some of the folks involved, and they'll probably do a tasteful, interesting job. But I can't help wondering how far the concept could (and should) be taken. Apostle's Island, where 13 stranded castaways attempt rescue from the island only to be thwarted by Judas' lovable hijinx? Three's Company, where the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost move into an apartment together and much hilarity ensues?
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Monkeyass posted Psycho ExGirlfriend. Some of the voicemails are pretty out-there.
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12 April 2001
AlpacaCam! (although I haven't actually seen any Alpacas yet)
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So, what do *you* call fizzy carbonated drinks? The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy shows a geographical distribution of the terminology used. Personally, I call them all "coke", but that's just my southern upbringing.
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Found on memepool. Some fun, lazy spring day reading. Federal Bureau of Prisons Execution Protocol.
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Today is link exchange day with Flutterby. K'Pinky and the Brain.
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11 April 2001
A topic of writers and existentialism came up in the wplug IRC channel, and I was reminded of this gem in my collection. The Existentalist's Cookbook.
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I'm on the bboard spam list for OpenACS. Turns out that Royal (the office equipment folks) are running an OpenACS-backed site. If you don't believe me, check out the doc page and, my favorite page of all time, monitor.tcl
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If you don't get enough Anvil Action in your Warner Bros cartoons, here's some folks that like to launch anvils for fun.
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10 April 2001
The Spousal unit found this note by Richard Turner on the double-reed mailing list, regarding the never-ending cutbacks of music programs in schools.
After a tenure freelancing, I started work as a programmer. In the past 15
years, I have seen businesses hunger for one thing: teams. The value which
is so hard to come by is getting people to work together. In this respect, I
hold that my music education was vastly more valuable than a computer science
degree would have been. After all, in a music education, teamwork is called
"good ensemble playing;" in most other fields, teamwork is called "cheating."
A music education teaches the values of communication from both ends: it is
the training not only of the expressing part of communication, but of the
receiving part. The responsibility of the individual in a group effort is
not only taught in music, but it is practically the only place it can be
taught for most of us. Analytical skills learned through dissecting
something as abstract as a piece of music serve us well far beyond analyzing
pieces of music. I can offer as testament one programming shop I worked in
which, out of a dozen programmers sported no fewer than three current or ex-
bassoonists.
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After browsing more of BunnyBass, I got sucked into Amusing Basses. All those poor instruments. Almost makes me want to weep and laugh.
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Found over at Flutterby, Miffy at School which brings back fond memories of elementary school. Rzolf will probably be excited by the pictures. Some of the other stuff in Mimi's Closet is pretty good, including some of the photos in the Weird Box and the ebay stuff.
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DougEDoug was mentioning the long borklog download times, so I've modified the code to only show the last 3 weeks or so. There's a link at the bottom of the page to whole damn thing for those sickos that want it.
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DougEDoug sent me this mp3 of the Animaniacs singing ingredient lists of candy bars and ice cream.
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Rzolf pointed me to an arsDigita forum over at f*ckedCompany. The ragging on Eve is in pretty poor taste, but some of the rest of it is pretty amusing.
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9 April 2001
It's Mr. T. Vs Cats, in an all your base are belong to blowout.
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Found by DougEDoug, Jesus Comes to Dinner.
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Spotted on Slashdot, Apple History, all the trivial details of everything Apple has made.
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6 April 2001
As much as I hate the phrase "From the XYZ Department", this definitely falls in the "Frim the You Gotta Wonder Department". Someone posted this message to the local linux user's group mailing list, saying things like "Interested in joining a local SAGE group?" "The first meeting of the local SAGE group, pghsage will be...", but never defines what "SAGE" actually stands for. There's a link on the mail message to the web site. It too doesn't define SAGE - just reprints the email message. Hmmm... there's some unreadable small print in the SAGE logo at the top. I followed the SAGE Main link, which defines SAGE as "System Administrators Guilds". Uhh... Leaving the E undefined, I guess.
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5 April 2001
For word-freaks, there's The Exploding Dictionary. Take a couple of dictionaries and cross-reference the stuffing out of them.
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4 April 2001
Rzolf posted a brilliant rant to the web/db board. Here it is for your pleasure. In case you miss the reference, MySQL (the darling of the Linux crowd) is a pretty unreliable database "solution". "Have any of you ever read the comments on a popular site like f---ed
company or slashdot? 90%+ of the postings should make you embarrassed
to be a member of the human race. Even on GOOD community sites like
photo.net, about 80% of the postings are disposable. Do you really
want to reliably preserve thousands of "me first" and "mr stinky
finger" posts for the rest of eternity?
Everyone should encourage the
use of unstable architectures for typical crummy community sites. A
server crash on one of these sites has the potential to wipe out hard
evidence that the internet world of the late 90s and early 2000s was
populated mainly by immature, racist, homophobic sociopaths. The use
of MySQL should be encouraged, for your children's sake."
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Stream pointed me at an assignment he's having to do for a networking class. I don't know about you, but this seems like a pretty pointless, worthless exercise, along with being vague. Lots of detail about some parts of the problem, and no details about other equally important parts of the problem. Poor Stream.
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It's a new month, and time for a new issue of Troubleshooting Professional. The Windows to Linux Conversion.
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Gig Alert: The Leechburg High School is doing West Side Story this weekend. Sharlotte & I are in the pit for this, and some of the church kids are in the cast (Go Riff!).
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From Memepool, Kids Fun Page, along the lines of Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book. I think it's lame, though that they have a disclaimer on the cover of the ABZ book these days. It was much more enjoyable being taken by surprise on a first reading.
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3 April 2001
Chunks sent me this rather crude road sign, so I sent him to Dan Lyke's Da Bears in retaliation.
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From GVD, Earthlights, a picture of man's hand upon the earth, taken at night.
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2 April 2001
Another from DougEDoug, Swedish localized Google
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DougEDoug followed the link on the Currency as Communication to Where's George, and actually results on currency serial numbers he entered, so it may be worth some amusement time.
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30 March 2001
I'm spending the end of this week down in Virginia, since I'm playing in the Loudoun Symphony concert on Saturday. I drove down yesterday (during a freak blizzard just outside of Breezewood, PA) to Leesburg, unloaded my stuff, and made some balloons for my hosts' house. Drove to Vienna (about 20 miles) to buy a new TiBook, and left it there to get memory installed, planning on picking it up today, since I was planning on visiting the ArsDigita DC office and the Vienna Metro(e) stop is the closest one to Leesburg.
And so, of course, the usually dependable automobile (the Hedgehog, a 1989 Accord) decided to seriously overheat on the way back home. So, the hedgehog is at the shop, I'm currently stuck in Leesburg, no new computer toy, and unable to visit the DC Office (unless I wanted to pay $100 for a cab). Poor poor pitiful me. Luckily I have my Thinking in Java Book, so I can still geek out.
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28 March 2001
Wow. This really is The End. Guess I'm done now.
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27 March 2001
I love the Balloon HQ mailing list. In today's digest was this question:I am in the yellow pages under Balloons and apparantly also under Party
Supplies. The last one brings in lots of strange requests. The current
one is for inflatable penquins. She seemed desperate, so I told her I
would see if I could locate some.
and, of course, someone knew where you can find Inflatable penguins.
Try "http://www.chazairjazz.com", they sell nice inflatable penguins produced
by Jetsonic.
OBTW, the penguin is Chilly Willy.
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From Billings, Important Travel Translation Companion, which may come in handy when you start your world travels.
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CurtisG pointed me to Romensko's Obscure Store and Reading Room, a nice hodgepodge of weirdnews.
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From memepool, Using currency as a communications channel, telling everyone that George Washington grew hemp.
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26 March 2001
Every now and then I come across a Unique Web Individual that I can't stop reading. Here is a critique of Brave New World, that goes on for pages and pages and pages. He's also written a tract on Cocaine, including when it is best to take it (and even then it degenerates into a rant similar to the Brave New World one. All of it based at Wireheading.com
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As if I need another game to play (between Clan Lord, and my still half-finished Baldur's Gate), 32bitsonline has a review of Oni, the much-anticipated Bungie Tomb-Raider style game. 32bitsonline is obstensively an Alternate Platform information/news site (they used to have some pretty good BeOS coverage), but lately they just have game reviews.
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A rare glimpse of me getting down and getting funky. Taken at a wplug installfest where my computer's power supply exploded.
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For the closet cannibals out there, ManBeef.
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DougEDoug found HoaxKill, a site of email hoaxes, and a mechanism to inform the chain of forwards that yes, this email is a hoax and you're a real bozo for continuing to forward it.
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dougEDoug sent me this Doonsbury cartoon about an exciting new economic paradigm, which I'm sure we'll attain via new initiatives in java based collaborative ecommerce
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24 March 2001
I wish I had learned How to Dance Properly when I was in high school and college. Would have saved a lot of hiding from dances.
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23 March 2001
From the Babylon 5 Lurker's Guide, Sci Fi to air New B5 Movie, with a possible spin-off series. All I can say is Woo Hoo!!
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From JO2y, Monzy. I especially like the video game entry. Wonder how well that would play in the US?
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From MonkeyAss, DNS Bajaj, diagrams DNS structures. For fun try microsoft.com.
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Porruka takes on Convergence over at MacEdition. Real food for thought.
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For true audio weirdness, run the Zombo.com monologue along with the hatten song. vinne kinky foooolgit this is zombo com. hatt baby hatt welcome to zombo com baby.
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From Rzolf, zombo.com (requires flash, and turn your speakers up). I can do anything. Antyhing at all. The only limit is myself.
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22 March 2001
NanoFiction, very (very) short stories for those with very short attention spans.
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21 March 2001
ParkWars, SouthPark meets the Episode 1.
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Found on Slashdot, Terms of Service, an insider's view on the world of AOL Terms of Service from the Arizona call center.
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Geekizoid has an interview with Rusty, of Kuro5hin fame. Here's a choice comment about Slashdot, when mentioning k5 and ./ side-by-side.Slashdot is very much an "anything
goes" style of community, where anytime you post, you
could get a well-thought-out reply from an expert, and a
suggestion to sodomize a goat, and a surrealist essay about
a certain Star Wars actress, all at once. Some people like it,
some don't.
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20 March 2001
DougEDoug hadn't seen the Starwars Gangsta Rap yet, so here it is. He went and tracked down the lyrics too, since I said I couldn't understand what Yoda was saying.
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Found on memepool, See the distribution of Surnames across the US. Fun and excitement! Find out where the Kepple Clan lives! Wow, there really are other Dalrymples out there? And the burning question, why are there no EDougs out there? I sense a conspiracy.
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Taco Bell and Mir, I'm unsure of the connection. If nothing else, it's a very bizarre publicity stunt. After all, how else does one celebrate the fall of a fungus-encrusted Soviet space station? With Tacos, of course!
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From a contributed link at the Loudoun Symphony, Energy in the Air, Sounds from the Orchestra. It looks like an orchestra guide for kids.
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19 March 2001
Found this on Flutterby, The Dot.Com 1040 form.
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Joel on Software takes on arsDigita.
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And if you don't want to wade through all of Bird Manna, at least check out the Alien Dance
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So this is what it's like being away from the computer for a couple of days. I've been pretty ill (fever, lungs filling with goop, and now I've got hives. wheee. I think my body is rejecting a project I really really don't like working on). If I croak, I'll make sure to have the Spousal Unit post an obituary here. In the mean time, enjoy Bird Manna. Here's the complete contents of the spam I got:
I was visited by spirits and they are speaking in
dreams. I wrote it down.
Please see http://members.nbci.com/jeeze2000/ Was
visited by a holy spirit. Do you think computers are
an interactive link between the biospheres?
All your interactive links between the biospheres are belong to us.
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15 March 2001
From Enna!, A new Translation of the Bible, comining the solemnity of Latin with the accessibility of English.
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From Billings, A unique pen-pal opportunity, especially for the lonely and/or the deseperate. I guess this is aimed at the typical male internet geek with no other opportunities for hooking up with the wimminfolk.
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14 March 2001
Happy Pi Day! March 14 (3/14) is Pi Day, and the Boston arsDigita office is having a Pi Day Party tonight. Unfortunately, this will be the first Pi Day Party that I've missed :-(. For those truly confused, be sure to check out eveander.com, Eve's House of Pi, again.
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From DougEDoug, Fun With Personalized Nike Shoes
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13 March 2001
From memepool, Arm your Hello Kitty!. I'm surprised Rzolf doesn't have one already. (or maybe he does...)
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I really enjoy the music in the "This Hat is Yours Song". I managed to get ahold of an mp3 of it (thanks evand!). in the course of digging up the song, I discovered it was written by Azar Habib. DougEDoug found a page of his stuff. The original song is probably a truly heartfelt religious experience, horribly twisted by some enterprising ShockWave programmers.
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Also, Time talks about AYBABTU.
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Classic Gaming takes on Zero Wing, the origin of All Your Base, etc, etc.
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12 March 2001
In our Spring rebirth,
Our love of poetry grows.
Here is Bad Haiku
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Troubleshooting Professional magazine takes on XML.
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10 March 2001
From Flutterby, why coleslaw and parachuting don't mix.
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9 March 2001
from DougEDoug, Oragami Telephones that work!
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8 March 2001
If you're not sick of Base Belonging To Us yet, there's Am I All your Base or Not
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From Billings, Employment Wanted Ad.
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From Rzolf, Eliza over Tempest (which isn't the Eliza and Tempest most computer geeks think they are). How to turn your computer into an AM radio station without additional hardware.
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Gig Alert: We're playing in the Westmoreland Symphonic Winds, who have a concert this Saturday in Greensburg, PA.
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7 March 2001
From Billings, SUPERCAR. Unfortunately the GPS unit is NOT included, so so much for Geocaching in this bad-boy.
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One of the weblogs I've been enjoying is Am I Immortal? Find Out Now, describing the New Life of someone using Alex Chiu's magnetic rings.
The SpousalUnit recently picked up Your Body's Many Cries For Water by Dr. Batman. There's also some stuff by him over at watercure.com. I haven't figured out if he's a genius or a crazed loon. We've been trying his water-plan (1 ounce of water per 2 pounds of body weight). For me, that's about a gallon a day (assuming I did my math right). Maybe I should rename Borklog to "Am I Incontinent? Find Out Now.
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From DougEDoug, Weather Underground, for those who need more than just the Weather Channel.
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This is making the rounds. Microsoft Tests Nuclear Device
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This is about the third time I've sent this link to somebody for them to check it out, and I can't find the information here, so here it is. The Hat is Yours (shockwave file). There's also a translation from the Swedish. It's worth watching all the way through before reading the translation.
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5 March 2001
Weird as Geocache is, the Hash House Harriers are weirder. Beer and jogging, a great combination. When I first started at aD, SeanY & I were describing Hash House Harriers to Rzolf, who thought we were pulling his leg in an elaborately staged bit of high-weirdness (actually, for all I know, it may still be an elaborately staged bit of high-weirdness). The fact that they exist, that Sean & I know about them, and were strangers that came from different coasts, greatly added to the surrealism of the moment.
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From Billings, Geocaching Hide and Seek for the GPS age.
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via memepool, When I Am King, a weird little heiroglyphic cartoon. Contains heiroglyphic nudity, for those that are are offended (or turned on) by such things.
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via Slashdot, Possible Outline of the new Star Trek series. Hopefully it won't suck as badly as Voyager did/does. One can only take some many remodulating the doubletalk device to generate a particleoftheweek
beam which naturally induces a jargon field in the sub-space anomoly
and saves the ship each week. (thanks to Silber Harloe for that bit of TrekSpeak)
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4 March 2001
Spotted on memepool, a review of Lara Croft's Naked Trampoline Party. Guess Eidos wants to cash in on the internet p0rn market. Wonder how long ago this game came out? I better check the release date.
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Via rzolf, Frank Chiu, a SF area, uh, colorful character. Not to be confused with Alex Chiu, who is obviously sane in his promulgation of magnetic healing rings.
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3 March 2001
From EgoMania, Feed Celine Dion!
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2 March 2001
For my friends in Seattle, How to Survive an Earthquake.
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1 March 2001
In preperation of making a giant 5 foot pink balloon flamingo for a friend of mine, I came across this. Flamingo Mania. I am utterly speechless.
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MonkeyAss pointed out that jark.net has some useful Java resources, including an online edition of Eckel's Thinking in Java
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28 February 2001
I'm generally not into the political thing, but Grand Rapper "E.D" sent me An open letter from Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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So, yet another bandwidth buster (my slow connection at home floweth over). This time from Teeevil, Winne The Pooh, after listening to too much heavy metal and playing too much D&D. (quicktime movie)
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From Billings, Quake hits Seattle. Hand of God, unhappy with BillG's speech? Could be.
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Might as well put up another bandwidth chewer. From JBW, The Golden Shower Video Game Song (quicktime). A Nice nostalgia piece for those oldsters who played Atari VCS games.
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A dance-remix of the All Your Base Are Belong To Us intro movie.
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From DougEDoug, Supreme Court on the Clean Air Act, starring a quote from Mrs. EDoug.
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From Rzolf, Dancing Paul. I'm on a slow link and didn't look at all of it. Not sure who Paul is and why he's dancing, but you can help!
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27 February 2001
Stream pointed out to me that one of the Pitt CS assignments is to write asteroids.
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Some history on "All your base are belong to us". A Retrospective, and via DougEDougAreBelongToUs, When Gamer Humor Attacks, a history for the unhip.
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My powerbook died today (the one I do most of my day-to-day work on). In calling the 1-800 apple support folks to arrange repair, I discovered that Sinbad is now doing the intro for Apple's calls. 1-800-apl-care (275 2273). Yo, I feel so hip now.
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Mac Edition takes on "revolutionary" computer games.
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26 February 2001
found on kuro5hin.org, Are you Ready for C99. I did most of my hardcore C hacking during the transtion from K&R C to ANSI C. Just about all I see in the C99 page looks nice. I just wonder about the motivation for Item O, "Multiple uses of a type qualifier are ignored after the first occurence". The article also has a link to some words from Dennis Ritchie
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found on memepool, Jokes on Object Oriented Programming. As you can expect, it's a hoot a minute. All your base classes are belong to us!
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From Billings, Mir possibly to hit Canada. Film at 11, eh?
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25 February 2001
Be hip! Be alien! All Your Base Are Belong To Us
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24 February 2001
Is your life lonely, empty, and without meaning? If so, you may need your very own personal SockMonkey!
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23 February 2001
Another goodie from DogEDog. What Kind of Dog are you? Turns out I'm a Bernese
Mountain Dog. Woof!
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22 February 2001
I was chatting with eoneill, one of the clients I work with. Turns out we're both Babylon 5 fans, and that B5 was based on some of the work of her Dad's, regarding L5 orbiting space colonies. Check out Space Studies Institute, and follow the link at the top.
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Babes of Iron Chef
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20 February 2001
since I'm in a balloon frame of mind, here's something from curtisg: balloon animal world record.
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I'm currently unearthing my work mailbox after being out for 6 days. This is a link from DougEDoug: where to counterfeit
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The Sunday TJam entry is up (no pictures, sorry), as well as pictures from from the 2-minute contest
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Juan sent me Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie Homepage.
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18 February 2001
Saturday's TJam report is up.
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17 February 2001
Friday's TJam page is up now.
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16 February 2001
Thursday's TJam page is up now.
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15 February 2001
I'm at TJam now. Pictures and stuff at my notes page. Making inflation work for you.
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13 February 2001
From memepool, Specially Processed Coffee.
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via LukeLog, Books Quiz, Moodmatcher. It picked Mathilde Blind's "Lassitude" and said I'm experiencing a bit of an existential crisis. Guess I should turn myself into a pumpkin, wear a beret, and jump off a bridge. It dooz not mattah.
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12 February 2001
BottomQuark, Slashdot for science geeks.
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KK Quah's Lego Creations Lego Japanese castles and a giant wheelbot. Also check out the Great Wall of China model. I was hoping the length would be to scale as well.
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DougEDoug pointed me at SpamMimic. Encode messages into text that reads like Ordinary Every-Day Spam! Send it to your friends! They can use the secret decoder ring to see what you sent! Carnivore eat your heart out.
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11 February 2001
via Chunks, Adequate.com. Parts aren't as lame as they initially look. Especially the web captions and the ChibiProject.
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9 February 2001
Flutterby had a reference to vignette of the human experience regarding a clerk at a porn shop in the Orange County Weekly. In the same issue is the obligatory confession of a cab driver
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8 February 2001
from Macintouch, Some Sun Dude rips into some other Microsoft dude about .net, java, open standards, etc.
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6 February 2001
From Juan. Look! It's a Badger With...
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My music of choice lately seems to be the Qwalli music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Here's a sample track. As I checked the web for supporting materials, I discovered that he died 4 years ago, which is really depressing. I may not agree with his beliefs, but he made some fantastic music. Similarly, the Omaha Municipal Orchestra is doing Shropshire Lad by British composer George Butterworth, who died in the trenches in World War One. This is a fantastic piece of music. One can only wonder what he would have accomplished in his life. While I'm pondering death and doom, refer down to my entry about Dani Bunten. The memorial page is back up.
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5 February 2001
I found a s0ckm0nk3y page at Am I Immortal, Tim, The Superstar Sock Monkey With Attitude!!!. If nothing else, the Giant Mister Potato(e) Heads avec SockMonkey are disturbing.
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Gig Alert: I'll be playing with the Loudoun Symphony on their Kiddie Concert on Saturday the 10th. I'm going to be The Beast in Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. We're also doing Peter and the Woof.
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Happy Faces on Mars, and who says that there's no civilization on Mars?
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4 February 2001
MEEP MEEP!!. I'm working through another balloon video. The basic meep meep bird (the baby-looking one on the right) is shown in detail on the viedo, while the more elaborate meep meep bird and the duck-like thing were just briefly waved around as "here's some other stuff you can do". After 15 minutes of back and forth with the pause button looking at the samples, I finally figured out the details.
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3 February 2001
From Slashdot, The Lego Chef, a take-off of the Iron Chef (which I have never really seen before. Chunks promised to get me a tape of it. What a loser), but the LegoChef is amusing nontheless.
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Steve Litt's Troubleshooting Professional Magazine issue this month is about Simplify Everything. He takes on complexity, what it is and where it comes from, and how to cope.
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2 February 2001
Silent Groundhog Day, Deadly Groundhog Day.
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via Rzolf. EineKleineElephantMusik
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Something that'll probably offend most everybody The Church of Euthanasia.
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via Flutterby, Utah Designates a State Snack
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1 February 2001
Someone actually got their TiBook. Here are the First Impressions.
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Mega Babes' Guide to the Linux Operating System including Shannen Doherty on AOLserver 3.2, as well as IRIX Tips from Adult Film Stars
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Another goodie from The Spark, The Gender Test. Determine what gender you are! Turns out EvanD is really a she.
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31 January 2001
It sucks being so ill you can't surf. Anyway, memepool had this today. The ultimate Cattlecar Battlestar Galactica site.
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Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass
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29 January 2001
Another one I read over the weekend was Bester's The Demolished Man. The first winner of the Hugo award, and all around fabulous book. It has some innovative uses of typography to illustrate telepathic communication. Usually when I hear "innovative, typography, telepathy" in the same sentence, I immediately word-associate to "cheese, junk, pain". In this case, it's actually an effect that works without being distracting.
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I've been fighting a cold or flu (mostly unsuccessfully) for the last day or two. When I feel oogie, I tend to crawl in bed and read fiction. We picked up The Cat Who Robbed a Bank. I like the "Cat Who" mysteries - they're fun little books. They're not terribly complicated mysteries (I get annoyed at complicated mystery stories, particularly when I'm sick), there are comfortable recurring characters, and if you have cats (particularly siamese), you'll recognize them in the two leading critter characters. You never get inside the cats' brains, though, which is something I like. It's best not to know too much what's going on in a cat's mind.
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26 January 2001
MonkeyAss passes along BritneySpears.ac: High-quality Britney Spears pictures, links, lyrics, cat, and Semiconductor Physics. Be sure to check out her lectures on Semiconductor Lasers
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jo2y and his touching story of Teeth
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25 January 2001
from the Blue Dino: High quality microsoft products. Pragma:no-cache doesn't work for several versions of IE.
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Rzolf pointed me at NetBaby World. So far I've only played some of the games, which are simultaneously lame and fun. In particular I've been enjoying
PostOffice and NinjaGirl. Although WhipIt is pretty lame.
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DougEDoug sent me The Public 8 Ball, a real live Magic 8 ball that gets shaken and displayed to you (works best with netscape). Off of that page is a link to a Magic 8 ball dissection and another Magic 8 ball dissection. Mr. EDoug got the Public 8 ball link from Compaq's Rapidly Changing Face of Computing Techonolgy journal.
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This is almost enough to make me want to watch the Superbowl.
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I know the folks who are developing the AOL internet appliance. It's way-cool: Transmeta chip, embedded linux, mozilla, touch screen, and it's quiet (no fans, no hard drives). Hopefully they'll have the "use your ISP instead of a modem" stuff done soon so I can actually use mine without racking up long distance charges.
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24 January 2001
Some of you net old-timers may remember Snoot.com, some early collaborative games. It looks like there may be a return, only now at Snoot.org. Check out the alpha test of some of the classic games.
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Wow! Leechburg PA featured prominantly on away.com. (well, OK. page 436 of an out of date guidebook is probably as prominant as Leechburg PA will get, short of being the next site for a school shooting; which probably won't happen since the youth around here are well armed, and all know how to use weapons)
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23 January 2001
Sometimes unresearched, yet targeted, spam is the most amusing. I run the website for the Loudoun Symphony, a better than average community orchestra in northern Virginia. Today I received this
My name is Carlos Gon=E7alves,I play both the Bass and Contrabass
Trombones whith some Portuguese Simphonic Orchestras ,Jazz Big Bands and
the Portuguese Navy Band,as you know there aren`t many Contrabass
Trombone players in all world,so if you ever need one,and if you want(of
course)you can contact me.Thank you so much.
Best regards
Now, I'm not sure why a community orchestra in Virginia would want to import a contrabass trombone player from Portugal. I can imagine the board looking at the year's budget. "$15,000 for conductor's salary. $20,000 for flying in a contrabass trombone player from Portugal."
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via Chunks, RubberBurner, a handsome race car driver. Be sure to view the movie. I think I've found a New Look.
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from DougEDoug, Microsoft's New OS
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EXTREME TOAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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No Dubyas in the white house? Apparently So. The next to last paragraph is pretty depressing. I guess he never noticed the "http" before the hostname.
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19 January 2001
I'm currently in Omaha, Nebraska, visiting the parental units. The flight from Pittsburgh -> Chicago -> Omaha was pleasantly unsurprising. (well, save for the run from the B concourse to the F concourse in O'Hare, and getting lost along the way). The bookstores in airports are geting weird these days. I was wanting one of those newsprint crossword puzzle books (like the Dell or PennyPress ones). None of the WH Smith book stores had them, and none of the newsstands had them. They were't sold out - just not carried. So I picked up a Dr.Pepper and slunk back to the waiting room. No, the WH Smith in O'Hare had the crossword puzzle books, but no pencils for sale (luckily the young lady behind the counter took pity on me and gave me a pencil). In looking for a fizzy caffienated drink there, I was frustrated - they only carried bottled water.
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SMI-boy sent me this, since I'm in Omaha now. An Onion Article on Omaha.
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17 January 2001
Guidelines for Writing Unmaintainable Code. I came across this in an interesting article and comment over at Kuro5hin, Confessions of a Crap Programmer
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AmIHotOrNot for the bestiality set.
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16 January 2001
Reggie Online the official fan-page for The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, one of the very good (yet under-shown) 70s BritComs.
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Found on Flutterby, Live Forever! yes YOU can live FOREVER! Harness the incredible POWER of magNItism and Live Forever!! There's also a weblog of a user. I just wonder if the Incredible Life Rings will save you if you fall into a meat grinder.
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ET Corn Gods Language and Game, mathematical spoof, or Revelation encoded into modern English by space aliens. You be the judge.
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No! Really! I am working today. The Death of Adventure Games.
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Seems like lately I've just been scraping Flutterby and reposting it here. Here's one more. Hearts and Minds, an online comic that doesn't suck! It actually makes good use of the technology its using. The "falling falling falling" scene is a nifty example.
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14 January 2001
Bill Gates eclisped by rising stars, a Microsoft now and future article. The descriptions of Bill's tantrums at the high-powered executive luncheon orgies are amusing.
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Diary of a young articulate drug addict. I don't know if it's authentic or not, but it is an interesting read.
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13 January 2001
For comparison, this is what came through on rec.humor.funny.reruns (which don't seem to have web references):
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Boston Globe this week:
Bear Hug
In a recent column Susan Trausch [Globe columnist] referred to Smokey the
Bear. It is true that Smokey the Bear deserves praise for his campaign
against forest fires. But nobody ever mentions the boy scouts he kills
for their hats.
(signed) Martin H. Slobodkin,
Cambridge
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Maybe I'm one of those net.geezers that say "I remember when rec.humor.funny used to actually be funny.". This joke (if you could call it that), Size Matters! came through today. Granted, it's an interesting fact and conclusion, but for the life of me I can't see how this is "funny".
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11 January 2001
Canonical list of Instrument Jokes
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DougEDoug sent me DADA's Little Baby Namer. Generate random baby names. Just call me Rynad Phenache now.
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10 January 2001
Continuing the programming language thing, I found this via ebradway over at Flutterby. Why I Hate Advocacy, particularly porgramming language advocacy.
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I like to think of myself as programming language agnostic. Use whatever tool works to get the job done. Having said that, here's an article about Java: Slow, Ugly, and Irrelevant. I haven't done much work with Java, and what I have done I haven't liked. Having done 3 years of hard-core C++ with a very, very nice framework, I found Java lacking some of the C++ features I had come to rely on (particularly multiple inheritance), not to mention the bad taste the abomination called "AWT" (the original Agonizing Abstract Windowing Toolkit that came with Java) left in my mouth.
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via Flutterby, High-Carb, modest-fat diets work for the long term. Now if I can find the willpower to adhere to one of those.
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Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.
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Something for those sick of the programming pages. BlueDino sent Microsoft Chair. On the one hand, I have to think "why not just be fed with an IV bottle and strap yourself onto a toiet", and on the other hand, I don't think I'd trust a piece of furniture from Microsoft. "Sorry, your recliner seems to have crashed. Call 911 to obtain the Jaws of Life to pry you out. Thank you for calling Microsoft 1-900 support. That will be thirty dollars please.".
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More in the programming flame-fest category. DougEdoug pointed me to Slashdot running an article on OOP Criticism. Basically it's an axe-grinding of OOP's faults (none of which was a revelation). Tools are tools, no matter what the marketing hype says. The Dremel Moto-Tool is pretty cool, but I wouldn't want to use it for cleaning my pool for for dental surgery. (well, you can use the Moto-Tool if it's someone I don't like). The author is using the article to push his Table Oriented Programming. Which in itself (after a very quick glance) looks like it could be interesting. I find the TOP article amusing in some of its language choices such as the use of "we think this" and "we have determined". It sounds a lot like the Unabomber Manifesto. (which is actually a pretty good read. I think Kaczinski was on to something with the whole Power Process and modern societies interruption of it.)
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9 January 2001
Oh my. The new Powerbooks are out. Maybe they should have named it the TiBook. I've now lost my MacCube lust, and am drooling over these now.
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8 January 2001
Ordinarily I try to avoid politics, especially given the current presidential election, but DougEDoug sent me Election Phone Calls. I've only listened to #2, but it was pretty funny. Time to go hit the local Wal-Marts...
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From memepool, I can't stop Thinking #5 Coins of the Realm, one of the more interesting presentations of the case for micropayments and how it relates to the online comic industry. I especially liked the section about advertising.
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7 January 2001
Leader Kibo takes on Fake Dr Pepper. A brief excerpt from one of the low scorers.
Not as bad as Store 24's Blue Raspberry, which
tastes like watermelon Bubble Yum and can be smelled from thirty feet away,
but still nearly as bad as getting fermented shrimp paste up your nose in zero
gravity while using Windows 3.1.
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5 January 2001
My sister is an amazing person. Graduated from college with a degree in english (with an emphasis in chemistry and biology) with high honors, went to med school, became a lawyer, worked for the EPA, and is now doing freelance artwork. Here's some of her newer stuff. I like the wine label. noopnoop.com is her site.
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New issue of Troubleshooting Professional. Exploiting Perceived Similarities
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My TwistemUp balloon apron came in (a day ahead of when it was promised!). This thing is a true work of art. Veclro strips for holding bundles of 260s, tons of pockets for specialty balloons, pens, scissors, and other gadgets. It's also incredibly well made, designed and built by a true master of the craft.
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via flutterby, The Splat Calculator for all of those rock-climbing enthusiasts.
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3 January 2001
One of the things I grumble about (I seem to do a lot of that) is the homoginization of America, due to huge giant mega chain stores like Wal-Mart (which drive out small businesses such as local grocery stores and local hardware stores) and Barnes N Ignoble, which make life very difficult for local book stores. I try to shop local when I can, as well as go to local restaurants when eating out rather than the big chains.
One of the Nice Things about the internet economy is that small speciality mom-n-pop stores have a chance again at survival. Take TwistemUp.com. They make a balloon twister's apron with just about every convenience feature you can think of. I'm going to be making balloons for the Kiski Valley Community Band party on tuesday. After placing an order for an apron, I asked them if they could expidite the order. Not only did the head of the company resond, but they could juggle the order, get it shipped out tonight, and to me by saturday. Most large companies I've dealt with (both in person and online) would have laughed, taken two days to respond to email, or charged extra.
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1 January 2001
The T Myers TJAM 01 is in a month and a half, so I'm working on expanding on my balloon skillZ so I don't make a fool of myself. Here's some recent work. Faces (from the Larry Moss balloonicatures CD) and Balloon Motorcycle, made as an xmoose present for DebNKebbin (Deb's been missing the red dirt bike she grew up with). This one is based on a balloon bicycle that Dewey has on his Advanced tape.
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EvanD wrote up a petition. Creation and Adoption of a Standard Linux
Filesystem and Package Management Specification
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QOTD, from the double-reed mailing list.New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not
encourage them to take up more of my time. -James Agate (1877 - 1947) English critic, author
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We just got back from the turn of the millineum at a friend's place near Punxsatawne, PA. It was DebNKebbin (and their 17 year old daugghter), Erins 18 year old friend, and us. It's a 70 acre farm in the middle of nowhere. With almost constant snow, no computer connection, and the biggest complaint of the trip being "the second jigsaw puzzle was too hard" (and this was with two teenagers too!), it was quite a way to bring in 01/01/01.
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27 December 2000
DougEDoug pulled me out of my minivacation and pointed me at Bartleby.com. Classic books online.
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26 December 2000
(OK, so I lied) via FlutterbyAfterburner's Quotes from a dude at Erol's abuse staff
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I'm taking the rest of the year off. More Borklog will return in January. Thankfully I resisted the temptation to say "and I'm working on a great new redesign", since there isn't one. muahahahaha
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23 December 2000
On a thread over at FlutterBy: How to keep a healthy level of Insanity
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I don't know why I rant about online comics as often as I do. I guess I'm disturbed by popular low quality (like VHS tapes and Microsoft). I have stumbled across Best of Bjornar B.. The cartoons make more sense (and are drawn better) than Pokey the Penguin, and are funnier than User Friendly. (of course, the IRS tax code is funnier than User Friendly...)
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22 December 2000
Stolen from BalloonHQ
The Top 18 Signs You've Hired the Wrong Clown for Your
Child's Party
18. By the end of the party, he's got every damn kid doing the "pull my finger" trick.
17. Clown car must be started with breathalizer device.
16. Keeps screaming, "My name's not BO-zo, it's bo-ZO!"
15. References to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are lost on most 5-year olds.
14. Props for his "disappearing" trick: a moving van and your wide-screen TV.
13. Scares the holy hell outta the kids during the "Severed Limb" trick.
12. Tells the kids he killed Barney in a blood match in Newark.
11. Didn't bring any balloons, but manages to twist your dachshund into other animal shapes.
10. Prefaces each trick with, "here's a little number I learned in the joint."
9. Not exactly the Peewee Herman impression you were expecting.
8. Wears a T-Shirt that says, "Drug-free since March!"
7. More interested in squirting seltzer into his Scotch than into his pants.
6. Those huge ears look too darn life-like, and the entire act consists of showing charts and complaining about the deficit.
5. A sad clown is one thing -- a clown who spends the entire party with a gun to his temple is another thing entirely.
4. Only balloon animals he can make are a snake and a "snake on acid."
3. Business cards include the phrase "From the Mind of Stephen King..."
2. Price list includes "lap dance" and "around the world."
and the Number 1 Sign You've Hired the Wrong Clown for Your Child's Party...
1. All the balloon animals are ribbed and lubricated.
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Mister Rogers has a website. There's some good stuff in his Thoughts for All Ages.
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Via Metakyle, Bush Or Chimp. You be the judge
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21 December 2000
EvanD turned me on to kuro5hin.org - kind of an alternative slashdot. One story that caught my eye was Optimization and the Bazaar. The tradeoff of code readability versus program speed is a tough judgement to make in closed-source shops. The question becomes more interesting in the Open Source World. Do you make your code fast but readable, thereby losing potential programmers that don't want to spend the mental energy to understand your code; or do you make it readable but slow, thereby getting a hard-to-shake stigma of a slow, bloated, unusable package?
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via slashdot, Beer in space.
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Via the Emiloid, Nostradamus (supposedly) said:"Come the millennium, month 12
In the home of greatest power,
The village idiot will come forth
To be acclaimed the leader."
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via flutterby (via columbine), Curious GWB goes to Wasington. Apparently this ran in Maxim (not sure whether from the magazine or the online version) originally. If you're a bachelor, you may be more interested in I Love Bacon instead. Its lowbrow humor is more entertaining that Maxim's, plus you don't have a 10:1 ad/content ratio.
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One of the very few actually amusing things to come by on rec.humor.funny in a long time. Medical Phrasebook
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amusing quote from a death penalty debate on comp.sys.mac.games.adventure, from Noivad:
I'd definitely fell the need for avenging a
loved one's death. But I'd opt for the slow painful public death,
complete with stoning and baseball bats -- or death by "Suddenly
Susan".
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19 December 2000
Lego for the hardcore: Lego Clocks
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via Flutterby, A 6 megapixel digital camera. Rzolf says that it's really just a 3 megapixel camera with software sampling (the "super CCD snakeoil" buzzword). Looks like my old but trusty Nikon FE is still viable. (that's what I used to take the Western Photos with)
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via MemePool, Dennis Miller Monday Night Football Deconstructed. Now I'd love to see one of those for an MST3K movie...
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From grand-rapper E.D., Norad Tracks Santa Claus Website. I'm bummed because there's not a "lock missles and fire" button. Myself, I'm becoming a scrooge about this time of year; particularly due to the commercialism and the expectation for everything to be Happy and Joyous. I like what my friends KebbinNDebb on Christmas morning. They bake a birthday cake, sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, and open a few small presents.
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From j5n, How Long do you have to live. j5n put in the most unhealty choices possible, and subsequently died 589 days ago.
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18 December 2000
via Card House, An article on corporate customer service, about one person who kept himself amused replying to customer's mail.At a job for a large toy company, I was
in charge of answering customers'
letters, packing toys and sending out
special requests for rare or
discontinued toys. I had been there
about a month,... when I started
experimenting with "creative"
responses. I wrote one reply to an old
guy (I could tell he was old because
the paper on which his letter was
written was yellow on the sides and
every inch of it reeked of pipe
tobacco) entirely in iambic pentameter,
all 700 words.
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In memoriam to Harold, the world's cutest guinea pig, I send you Cavies Galore, A guinea pig community. Be sure to play the guinea pig games.
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QOTD from Jeff Ray on usenet.From my perspective as a programmer, X Windows is all the wonderfulness of
a fully event driven architecture combined with a reasonably
object-oriented structure, taken one step too far. Mix in a large bowl
with a wide selection of "What were they thinking?!?!" design elements,
and season with cross-platform problems.
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Be sure to visit Eve, the Pi Lady, one of my cow-orkers at ArsDigita.
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(via flutterby). Even though Dubya may be pretty slimy and unpleasant, at least he has the decency to use a Mac
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OK, You can now call me completely insane. Yesterday not only was gig hell (singing at a morning service, community band concert in the afternoon), but the spousal unit & I played baroque recorders at a "Christmas in a Barn" service last night at a working barn at a Pickle Farm (one of the many things I'm loving about small-town life. How many city-folks can say they played a Lutheran service at a Pickle Farm Barn?) The only catch was that the barn isn't really heated, we were in blizzard conditions, and the temperature outside was 10 degrees F (-10 F wind chill). I'm happy we escaped with less frostbite than we did.
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I got a note back from Dale Miller (referenced below), about a possible resurrection of UBBS (at least it's in the "kicking around ideas stage"). That would rule(tm) so much. If nothing else to get back in touch with some of the regulars from back then, like LKKoller, MicroMan, and Melissa "Honeybear" Finley. Plus I'd love to play another round of TEGWAR (The Exciting Game Without Any Rules).
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16 December 2000
Back when I was in highschool (early 80s), a programming genius that worked at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (Dale Miller) wrote a fantastic BBS system in FORTRAN, running on the university's VAX cluster. UBBS bacame the hang-out for Little Rock's geeks. Many years later I came across an article about Dale's dressing oddity. More power to him. (I still miss UBBS)
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15 December 2000
via memepool. Testing the limits of the US Post Office. Remember that mail must be wrapped.
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14 December 2000
Not that I'm an expert on web design (as you can tell by my completely sophisticated page layouts around here), I was amused by this page Wonderful World of Statistics, with the line at the bottom of the lower-right most frame saying "Thanks to my friend Richard D. Rupp for giving me some
good ideas about web pages." With friends like that...
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So far I'd only seen bad paraphrases of this article on "news" sites, but here it is for real. Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne. Thanks be to rzolf for passing this on.
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Here's a Web Server implemented in awk
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Rzolf made the Winamp Team Page. Be sure to tell him that he ranks higher than the llama. Speaking of llamas, there's always llamas.org. Be sure to visit Harry the Virtual Llama.
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Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor. I came across Yet Another Net Comic, Angry Little Asian Girl which sounds like it'd have lots of promise, but I found it dull and predictible. The tribute to Matt Groening is particularly banal. About the only online comic strip (daily no less) that keeps me off balance and occasionally laughing is JerkCity. Someone takes IRC conversations and puts them with cartoon characters. It's frequently offensive and frequely weird.
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13 December 2000
via Flutterby, Villiage People Ken
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I like making balloon animals. I don't particularly like clowns. They weird me out. Knockers the Klown seems to be a wholesome (yet perverted) clown. The narrow minds at Stop Clown Porn Now seem to have a problem with her.
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WhiteDot, for those folks who don't like televison. We haven't had cable TV installed here since we moved to PA 5 months ago. To tell the truth, I don't miss it. We have a good supply of video tapes for if we need a TV fix (which isn't often). Usually when I'm exposed to network TV, I'm usually appalled at the lameness of the show, the lameness of the commercials, or both.
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via rzolf, UnixSex.com. See all sorts of sysadmins "get it on" with high-end unix "servers".
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12 December 2000
Someone I know is doing a deal with Primedia. As a friend of dougEdoug pointed out:
They own "16 magazine", "16 superstars", "Super Teen" and "Seventeen" also "Teen Beat", "Teen Beat All-Stars", "Teen Machine", and "Tiger Beat". They seem to have cornered the market on teens -- which is weird because who knew it was basically one company telling teens what's important.
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Today was Crass Commercialism day. Our two vehicles (Sharlotte's 89 Accord with 87K miles, and my 87 Integra with 147K miles) needed some TCL (er, freudian AOLserver slip. I should say "TLC"). Since we're out in the sticks, the closest dealer is 30 miles away. The Badger (my car) hasn't had a regular dealer checkup in 60,000 miles, so we figured it would be there all day (and we were correct). So we did what every Red Blooded American does, take a shuttle to the local Mall and kill a couple of hours. We did manage to find HanaKwanzaaMas gifts for a number of our family. But the real corker was finding not only a new stuffed badger (picture forthcoming. It'd disgustingly cute), but the store also had a "Badgers!" calendar. In Greensburg PA, no less. I guess Western PA has some kind of Badger fetish too (seeing as how I found a small beanie-badger in the Pittsburgh airport)
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11 December 2000
Via dougEdoug, a picture of someone with too much hands on their time, or something like that.
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Here are some results from Stream's linguistic survey.
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Via Chunks, Protective Pairing in prison situations. Whenver I think that Chunks is becoming too much like Hello Kitty, he springs stuff like this on me.
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CheesyJesus.com A collection of over-the-top (which some would consider offensive, others consider amusing collector's items, and yet others would use for daily devotionals) God-Stuff merchandise.
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I've been living in western PA for about 5 months now, and I'm still not used to some of the local food conventions. Much to Rzolf's delight, "Ham BBQ" is the barbeque of choice up here. It's thinly sliced ham soaked in BBQ sauce. At first I thought Ham BBQ was peculiar to the local stop-n-rob that has a deli counter that features Ham BBQ every now and then, but it appears to be a much wider phenomenon. At our local Pizzaria, their "BBQ Hoagie" is also Ham BBQ. I don't particularly like the Ham version all that much (having been brought up on the cow varieety). Oh well.
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Apparently NoBaboon was weirded out by the pictures of my stuffed badger collecton. Figured I'd put them up here to weird everyone else out. (I took photos of them so my sister could see what I'm talking about when I say "badgers")
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9 December 2000
Wow, "one of those days". It seems like folks have been dropping like flies recently. This morning we went to a funeral of the sister of a friend of ours. This afternoon was a band concert. We're dedicating one of the songs to the memory of B. Murphy, a founder of the band and long-time clarinet player. Also, the band director's mother died thursday, so we had a draftee lead the band. I feel as wiped-out now as I did when I discovered that Dani Bunten had died. I knew Dani when she was Dan Bunten (the name you may remember from the computer game M.U.L.E) back in Arkansas, when I was a seventh grader going to a local Apple ][ User's group meeting. (ironically the mpath.com link is currently not responding)
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8 December 2000
Dangi sent me this from an article about AOL over at fool.com:I believe that, by and large, what appear to be problems with product quality that AOL ignores actually are product attributes that AOL carefully manages. It might not seem this way as we're banging our heads against it, but there's little accidental about that garden wall. In the end, AOL doesn't succeed in spite of how badly it sucks, but because of how well it sucks.
Early at my tenure at AOL I was annoyed by a bunch of stuff that the AOL client didn't do, or didn't do well, or there was something wrong about some stuff I saw on the service. After I discovered that AOL primarily views itself as an Entertainment medium ("Seinfeld is our #1 competition"), much of that suckage became understandable. If you're a power user who knows the difference between POP and IMAP, AOL is not the product for you. If you can barely run a word processor (and I know many otherwise intelligent and capable people who can't do that), then AOL will be more your stile.
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Rzolf sent me This short article on Baboons. I think it puts an interesting spin on the "are primates intelligent" debate. I know that Koko the sign-language gorilla shows more intelligence and language skills than some humans I know.
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via memepool, The Game of 1000 White Cards, which sounds like a hoot. A cross between TEGWAR (The Ultimate Game Without Any Rules, popular on some BBSs and IRC channels) and Mutual Destruction (try to destroy your opponents picture with a new one).
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Stream is running a Linguistics Survey for a school project. Swing on by and have a look.
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7 December 2000
Salon has an article about High tech's missionaires of sloppiness. The current PC and software manufacturing culture is a lot like automobies in the past - cool features, awful quality and realiability. Japan ate our lunch in that arena for a long time, and they or someone else probably will do it again once consumers tire of accepting poorly constructed software and hardware.
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via Chunks, 5 Crappiest Tech Jobs
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6 December 2000
via grand-rapper E.D.: another use for AOL cds
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via memepool. Sumo + SailorMoon = SailorSumo
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I forgot where I found this from, but it could be useful. dotfiles, like Freshmeat, but for configuration files.
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via rzolf, Ten Reasons to Start Skateboarding
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via Chunks, Star Trek Technology Brought to you Today. I'd love to have the engine disabling one.
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5 December 2000
For folks who do magic, or who are looking into entering the local entertainment industry (not _that_ kind of entertainment rzolf), check out Mark Nilsen's Column Archive
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via Chunks, Felix Spector, D.O.. Upon first seeing this (and some of the procedures offered), I was somewhat squicked-out by it. But having known some transgenered individuals (some of whom made frequent trips to Philadelpha), I can understand the market behind his work.
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from Billings, http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllantysiliogogogoch.com/
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4 December 2000
New issue of Troubleshooting Professional Magazine is up: The Many Faces of Troubleshooting and Problem
Solving
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3 December 2000
Joel gets half of the Open Source Religion, by selling a bug tracking product and providing the source. What's interesting is that he mentions AOLserver in there (just offhand) but interesting nonetheless.
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Via flutterby, What's Abstinence Got To Do With It?, explaining the fallacy of "just say no" when there's no education involved. The "Just Say No" concept applied to drugs/sex/IRC/Rolf without explaing the facts behind them is an ineffective strategy. I like Andrew Weil's book From Chocolate to Morphine: Everyting you need to now about mind-altering drugs. It presents the effects and risks of mind-altering substances (including social acceptable ones like alcohol and caffeine) in a non-judgmental, almost clincal manner; presuming the reader is smart enough to judge facts and make logical decisions.
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30 November 2000
Replublicans import protestors and stage a near-riot. Gotta love the politcal process.
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The Undergrowth of Science, a fluffy review of a book that looks interesting - bad science, and why good scientists get led astray.
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If Architects had to work like Web Programmers.. You can strike the "Web" and still have it make sense.
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Reviews of a beer-derived (no alcohol) BongWater sodas. I feel sorry for the folks who had to review them.
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Ordinarily I don't like talking about electronic gadgets, but Sharlotte ordered us a Bose Wave Radio/CD. The sound of this thing is fantastic (better than the cheesy console stereo we have now)
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29 November 2000
I spent monday and tuesday down in DC meeting with one of our new Oracle DBAs to learn everything we've been doing wrong (which actually turns out to be quite a lot). It was good to see the gang down there and the various dogs. The company put me up at a Residence Inn (another Fine Marriott Property) which was truly spiffy - it was nicer than my first apartment! They're designed for the long-haul bidness taveller, so there's a refrigerator, cook-top, nice little dinner table with fancy place setting(s), nice sofa, and a pay-per-hour Nintendo 64 with a selction of about 3 dozen games. I was afraid to try out the N64, lest the charge appear on my bill as "movie", which would, of course, imply that I spent my time watching porn.
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Figured while I'm in 'burn-in-hell' mode, I'd pass on The Queen Jane's Translation (uncensored) of the Holy Bible.
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Tired of the usual sappy greetings cards? Send HeretiCards!
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via Slashdot, PlayStation 2 Technical Overview. A brief history of the PS2, and a look into some of the guts.
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28 November 2000
From memepool: Geek Boy Services. According to their literature,
cool chicks will take you shopping, pick out your clothes, and discuss the ins and outs of this city with you.
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27 November 2000
The WASAW (Writers & Artists Snacking At Work) bastards haven't udpated their snack review page in forever, but I know some folks ahven't experienced it yet. Don't expect any updates, but be sure to see if your favorite *snack* is on there.
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Porruka has written up a thought-provoking (even though I hate that term) article over at MacEdition , The Digital House Of Cards. The technolgies we're using and creating are mutating the world at an insane pace. What happens to those folks are being left behind?
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New stuff over at MC Hawking since I last looked. "E=mcHawking" is a new tracks.
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24 November 2000
whooo weee! We had a nutball stumble through #wplug today. Here's his page http://www.stampede.org/~drax/spk-paper/, basically pushing Yet Another Packaging System. Note that all of the interesting content is RTF format. HTML isn't good enough because it doesn't match his "exacting standards". I haven't read them since I can't read RTF directly in the browser, and I'm not interested enough in the techonology to jump through the hoops of downloading the page locally and reading with another tool. Oh well.
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ffeJrraB sent this: Visix Gaming. My first job was for a dysfunctional startup called Visix (which has been defunct for a couple of years). Actually, I think all startups are dysfunctional in one way or another. My Visix has an alumni support mailing list. It's just kinda weird seeing an "About Visix" page for a company that's not history.
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Welcome to Transparency, where the complexities of life are explained through analysis of TV shows. A small exerpt from the book of Gilligan.In each of Gilligan's little disasters, in which he gives in to in
some temptation, causing himself and others to miss out on the chance to be
saved, we see humanity's continuing inability to escape its own state of
exile. (Unless, of course, one prefers to see in Gilligan's pathetic innocence
a more sinister figure we also know from Genesis.)
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evand pointed me at some cool music. Kraftwerk's Showroom Dummies, kind of like a German Devo. Originally evand pointed me at Senor Coconut's Showroom Dummies, a latinized cover (and a pretty good piece of music too). Senor Coconut has his own page too.
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23 November 2000
I hope everyone in the states has a satistfying and appropriately enjoyable Gluttony Day. Don't forget that tomorrow is the National Buy Nothing Day. I plan on spending time tomrrow with a community band, freezing my butt off playing carols in Vandergrift. Wheeeee!
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22 November 2000
maybe I'm just hungry because it's near lunchtime, but I found some good recipies on Eating Well.net a.k.a. Ask Dr. Weil - Food as medicine. Ask Dr. Weil comes highly recommended, as do his various books.
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Via Flutterby, an article over at Salon Life, Death, and Everquest about a supposed online suicide on Everquest. The article gets into some of compulsive behavior that these kind of games can engender, where the virtual world becomes as important (if not more so) than the Real World. I know I spend too much time in Clan Lord, a MMPRPG for the Mac. Luckily I don't have the stamina to keep "in character" for too long, so it hasn't turned into a full-blown addiction. yet.
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21 November 2000
Woo hoo! I've finally been able to do Dewey's Hook Twist. It's harder to do (at least for someone lame like me) than the instructions indicate.
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Joel on Software writes up Netscape Goes Bonkers. Taking apart the new Netscape 6. Personally, I'm still on Netscape 4.0X, which is one of the last versions before it beame too "helpful" and added autocompletion in the Location box. Using post-4.0X Netscapes always annoyme. Either the bar autocompletes too fast and I get a page I didn't want (usually a page I visited months ago and have no interest in now) or it takes a long time (where long is on the order of seconds) to autocomplete, if at all. I've poked and prodded all over mac Netscape 4.X's and couldn't find a documented (or undocumented) parameter to turn it off.
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I discovered JustinSpace via memepool. There's some amazing stuff in there, such as Obscene Interiors where they critique the decor in amateur porn photos (the nekkid people are greyed out, so you're safe), Ebay Conceptual Art Gallery, and Theme Pink, all sort of Gay-Pride signs subtly (and not so subtly) hidden in the decor of Disney World.
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20 November 2000
I am completely horrified. I found out today that I'm only 3 bacon units away from Mr. Winkle, the Cutest Kick-Dog in the Universe (gag). My bud rzolf knows this Skater chick, who knows mr. Winkle. Excuse me while I go purify myself. (shudder)
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While I was in DC week before last, I picked up and finished the final book in the Babylon 5 "Legions of Fire" series. If you're a B5 fan, you should read this series (composed of The Long Night of Centauri Prime, Armies of Light and Dark, and Out of the Darkness. The other B5 triology (describing the Psi Corps) is also worth reading.
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More snow! It's really coming down now, turning the area into a winter wunderland(tm). Here's a bad picture snapped out the back door before the camera battery gave out. Unfortunately it didn't catch any of the falling snow. Oh well.
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19 November 2000
via Slashdot, How the Sunday Times cracked the Enigma code, a brief cloak-and-dagger story on the recovery of three encryption rotors from a stolen Enigma.
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17 November 2000
via Billing's: You Are Here
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Quote of the week from ScreenIt's review of Ahnalds new movie The 6th Day (in their "Our Take" on the film)
The real reason to worry [about cloning humans], however, is that certain dastardly characters will
inevitably clone themselves. While the thought of reproducing tyrannical figures
from the past or present is scary in its own right, the possibility of scores of clones
of Richard Simmons, Carrot Top or Yanni simultaneously performing around the
world, or of hundreds or thousands of political candidates concurrently
campaigning in every state, city and precinct is enough to send shivers down one's
spine and elicit the call for immediate suspension of all such testing and research.
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16 November 2000
Kernel Hangman! Try to guess the Linux kernel symbol. According to folks on the Kernel Traffic list, this was inspired by the OpenBSD kernel debugger, which included symbol hangman.
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Wow. It's been awhile since I've read some full-tilt far-out wacko rants. Matt Samet has some real doozies, including The Story of Rick. Not appropriate for most children.
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During my stay in DC last week, I was staying with a college buddy and had the opportunity to experience Network TV for the first time in many months. Now I know why I'm not in a hurry to get the TV here hooked up to anything besides the VCR. One particularly egregious annoyance was Domino's new(?) "Bad Andy, Good Pizza" ad campaign. Apparently this little furry creature wreaks havoc in a local delivery office. The commercials weren't particularly funny, clever or even weird for weirdness' sake. After nosing around Dominos.com, I came across a Press Release about the ad compaign. 20 to 40 million dollars for those ads. I guess it's what you can expect from the company that brought us the "Avoid the Noid" campaign.
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Byte has an article about a BeOS View of Apple's New OS X. by Scott Hacker (a luminary in the BeOS community. I'm really bummed by BeOS and its lack of finding a market. The OS is incredibly fast and responsive, and the programming environment is to die for: pervasive multithreading, a well designed C++ UI library, fast journaled filesystem with attributes (leading to some cool database-like features) Unfortunately there's no market (even less of a market than dear old MacOS) due to lack of marketing and not aggressively getting basic business apps on the platform.
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15 November 2000
via Slashdot, an article on PORNsweeper. Can you imagine the guys what wrote this in the first place?
Beavis: Hey! Hey! I got a great idea! heh heh heh
Butthead: uh.... what
Beavis: We can look at porn all day! and get paid for it!
Butthead: Cool!
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From Chunks: SkipIntro. sums up my feelings on Flash (save for classics like Pico)
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Grand-Rapper "E.D." sent me this Nation Plunges Into Chaos, Pro-Bush Rebels Seize Power in West, DC in Flames.
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Woo hoo! First snow of the season out here! It's only a dusting, but still, it's snow! (now granted, I'll probably be hating snow in January, but it's exciting now)
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14 November 2000
Dan Mascenik has an article on Why All hard Disks Should be Mirrored, including the results of an autopsy of a fried 20GB hard drive.
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13 November 2000
Another reason why I think there should be IQ requirements before drivers licenses are issued.
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I spent the end of last week up in the DC area, visiting the arsDigita DC Office. On saturday went touring some of the sites of DC, including the Air and Space museum (they have exhibits on the space shuttle and the hubble telescope that I hadn't seen before). Hooked up with O'Boivin, a band director from New Jersey, and Smuc-D and hit some of the National Gallery.and the modern art museum. I was happy to see that Bresson's minimalist masterpiece "Stations of the Cross" has returned their after a tour last year. The next day I went to sight-read a concert with the Riverside Wind Symphony (and ended up destroying my back moving tympani. I'm walking like Torgo now) and drove back home.
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Big picture of Mars
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10 November 2000
What is it about most internet cartoons that make them so incredibly lame (besides just being unfunny)? Memepool had a listing for Diesel Sweeties, where she's an ex porn star and he's a robot. Fertile comedic ground, yes? One would think. It's actually lame. I've gotten more laughs out of
Pokey the Penguin, which is not saying much. Maybe I'm on the other end of the comic amusement curve. I find User Friendly to be trite and predictible, even though it's a favorite amongst the "geek elite".
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From the "way too much time on their hands" department on Slashdot: Star Wars Trilogy in Lego. You too can do this, in only 155 weeks...
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Here's a video of Ballon Geeks at EuroJam, a Eurpean balloon convention. It's about 7-8 megs, but the goldfish, monster puppet, and giant poodle are pretty cool.
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QOTD from Dan Lyke over at Flutterby
I also think that as long as we do view politics as some sort of sporting
event, humans are stuck being a herd, taking cues from the alpha males and
affiliating as packs. As long as this is the case politics won't be about ideas,
it'll be personality, and we'll continue to replay the last tens of thousands of
years. Ho, hum.
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ScreenIt is my favorite on-line movie review site (not that I have the time to watch many movies these days). It's geared as a "parental information" source, allowing parents to screen a movie's content before letting the little sprogs go see it (I saw Alien when I was 12, and it didn't seem to have too much of an impact on me, but anyway). For those of us sans children, we can use the ratings to guage the potential thrill and titalation factor (hmm, this movie has an extreme rating for violence and a heavy rating for sex/nudity. let's go see it!). In addition to ratings, there's an enumeration of most of the specifics in each of the 15 (!) categories. And to topit all of, their "Our Take" reviews are usually amusing and on-target, such as this one from the review of Pokemon, the movie 2000
Thus, as I was sitting in the theater watching the sequel, subtitled "The Power of
One," I couldn't stop my mind from wandering and the place it kept going to was a
scene from Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."
...
Nonetheless,
a several month marathon of these Pokémon films played to those incarcerated in
prisons and jails around the world would certainly allay, if not cure, much of the
world's criminal and otherwise antisocial behavior.
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9 November 2000
rzolf must be bored today. Know Your Enemy: Worms at War, about internet worms that exploit windows 98 vulnerabilities. Gee thanks MS.
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Rzolf wanted to get "inator.com" so he could register "rzolf.inator.com". Alas, it's Taken Now, WTF it is, I don't know.
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8 November 2000
There's a thread on RSI going on in a private ArsDigita bulletin board. I found a page which demonstrates some of the wrist stretches that I use to combat it when it flares up. Linda at Visix (an Aikido nut) showed them to me. http://www.labs.agilent.com/personal/Danny_Abramovitch/wrist/wrist.html. I do the Yubi Tori (c) - but pull on your palm, not the fingers; (d) Ikkyo, and (g) Sankyo [but gently!]. Sankyo veddy much.
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From the Onion via MonkeyAss Bush or Gor: 'A New Era Dawns'.
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7 November 2000
What's your pokename? I am Voltmander. I live in the snowy mountains of Greenland, and my diet consists mostly of insects, garbage and Dr.
Pepper. I will not tell you my Combat Characteristics, just in case I need to use them.
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QOTD from slashdot:Companies like Microsoft are founded on the notion of commoditization.
This is quite analogous to what the industrial revolution did for
craftsmanship, what MacDonald's did for cooking, and what companies
like AT&T did for customer service.
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OK, I must admit a guilty pleasure over spending too much time at Am I HOT or NOT? What's kind of weird is that my tastes seem to be out-of-whack with the typical net surfer. The folks I think are really cute end up with scores of 3 (out of 10), and folks I go "ehh" at end up with 9.7s. I still think Rzolf needs to post his picture up there.
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Fun artcile on how to solve our traffic congestion problems. Recall Ralph Nader Let the auto industry off the regulatory hook and let them produce the deathtraps they want to make. That should reduce road congestion by goodly amount, either by wiping out a chunk of the population or frightening folks into not driving nearly as much.
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6 November 2000
from wwJSCd: qi gong truck pulling.
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Gig Alert: Westmoreland Symphonic Winds, Saturday Nov 18th at Seton Hill
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Gig Alert: in Northern virginia, I'll be sitting in on a performance by the Riverside Wind Symphony at the sunday morning service of Riverside Presbyterian Church. They'll be doing some pretty good stuff (like Brian Balmage's Invictus - if you're in a good concert band, you need to do this piece)
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No! Really! I am working today. arsdigita.com got Slashdotted today because of this story pointing to Philip's Management of Software Enginerds article. There's a lot of comments that echo my sentements about Philip's article. The site itself died mainly because of bad server configuration (I told them a number of times that 150 connection threads is an insanely high value), some ineffecient filters that are running on each page, and memory contention issues in AOLserver 3. Luckily we've got some braniacs on staff to diagnose the problems. Having done similar things at AOL for 2 years, I'm glad not to be in the firing line nowadays.
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via a comment at slashDot, a Scholarly Paper about Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments . It's your typical "examine freshmen college psychology students for fun and profit" research, but does highlight the effect that many of us see (at least me) in day-to-day life, where folks that are incompetent think they're hot-stuff, and the folks who really know their stuff think they're just about average.
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5 November 2000
I was fortunate(?) enough to be young when the Cabbage Patch Craze took off. About the only fortunate side-effect of that horror was the creation of The Garbage Pail Kids. If you like dead-baby jokes, you'll love this stuff.
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I've been playing with Karl's Templating System for ACS. It's actually pretty nifty. The documentation is broken to various degrees making finding out details pretty difficult, but once you find the piece of info you need (like how to use a master template), you can get pretty powerful results with a little bit of XML configuration, an ADP template and your database. Luckily I get no traffic and have a pretty beefy box, so the overhead (and I'm sure there's quite a bit of computational overhead involved in this stuff) isn't an issue now.
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Went to the WPLUG monthly general user meeting yesterday. Rick Smith gave a talk on "Intro to object oriented thinking" using lots of props, including knives, bowls, and rolled oats. Not a lot of revelation about OO programming (having done it perfessionally for a number of years), but the talk and the technique of the talk was fun to watch. The driving example was cooking fudge, showing it in the structured-programming top-down method before talking about it from an OO point of view. The real kicker was a slide showing the recipe as it would be expressed in functional programming. And Rick nearly got all the way through it without talking about Revision Control.
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3 November 2000
First Aid for the Dying Dot-Com.
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Porruka over at MacEdition has written an article on The Irrational Market, the fallout of the internet 'dot-com' generation and easy end-user trading of stocks leading to the stocks, rather than the companies, being the items of value.
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2 November 2000
The November issue of Troubleshooting Professional Magazine is out.
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The Mona Lego, the Mona Lisa done in Lego. I wish I had that kind of spare time...
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1 November 2000
Quote from Larry Wall (creator of Perl): "I think ugly can be beautiful, and that beautiful can get ugly real
quick. I think in particular of Lisp, which is the most beautiful
language in the world, and every program in Lisp is real ugly."
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New Netcraft Survey of the proportions of web server software in use on the net. What's interesting is AOLserver took a plunge of 5000 sites, but still holds a whopping 0.68% of the market. woo hoo!!
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It took entirely too long to track this down again, so I figured I'd post it yere. The Wiki site for Extreme Programming. Wiki is a cool collaboration system (it recognizes words and automatically links them, and anyone can contribute), sort of like an automatic everything2.
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31 October 2000
from Grand Rapper E.D:
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration is convinced that pigs can fly. Now it wants to know how and why.
The FAA said on Monday its investigators are trying to sort through a bizarre series of events that allowed a 300-pound pig to fly first-class aboard a nonstop USAirways (U) flight from Philadelphia to Seattle.
In the rare case of a pig that actually flew, the porker boarded USAirways Flight 107 on Oct. 17 with its two women owners and 198 other human passengers, and slept for most of the six-hour flight.
But the animal went hog wild as the Boeing 757 taxied to the terminal in Seattle. The squealing beast ran through the plane, discharging feces as it went, and tried to get into the cockpit before taking refuge in the aircraft's food galley.
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From jo2y: Seized.html. Someone poked around a machine for 5 minutes after hearing of a site being hacked. The FBI shows up and takes his equipment.
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Philip has written an article on Managing Software Engineers. It's an interesting article, but I think it suffers from the typical macho software nerd uber-hacker wannabe syndrome. My first job (Visix) was a lot like what the environment he described - core workers toiling for long hours, accomplishing much, great fun had by all. He misses the point that workers eventually grow up, have families and interests outside of long work weeks, and no longer want to devote their entire lives to The Company. As well as overlooking the fact that a highly competent person that only works 40 hours a week can be much more productive than the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college grad who spends 160 hours a week at the office.
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Rzolf sent me a link to BodyPerks, the nipple enhancements that he uses.
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I'm back from my whirlwind tour of Northern Virginia. We went down Wednesday morning (about a 4 and a half hour drive), stayed with some friends there (who unfortunately were having telephone problems), and visited just about everyone we know down there.
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24 October 2000
Rzolf must be bored today. He found this on turning a G4 cube into a scent MacHine:
Repeatedly spray Lemon Pledge into container until a depth of 7" is achieved. Submerge G4 Cube overnight in a bucket of Lemon Pledge 4-10 hours, remove from bucket and then disassemble, using paper towels to absorb excess liquid. Polish the case to a high sheen with a lint-free cloth. The cracks will still be visible, but your cube will fill the room with a natural-smelling lemon fresh scent as it warms up.
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Quote of the moment from Wakko Warner on Slashdot (regarding an article that called the pentium pro core a masterpiece): "Calling anything from the x86 world a 'masterpiece' seems, to me, like putting a gold star on the best-looking fingerpainting in the special-needs Kindergarten class."
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anoter from Rzolf. The Spudgun Technology Center All you ever wanted to know about potato(e) guns. Especially launchers and dog toys
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from Rzolf, Big 10 inch punkin chunkers
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23 October 2000
Gig Alert - I'll be playing contrabassoon (and Sharlotte on English Horn) in the Loudoun Symphony first concert on saturday the 28rd and 29st. If you're in northern Virginia and want tickets, lemme know.
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Oh, and a new Kernel Traffic is up.
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From Chunks, a Boston Globe article on ArsDigita.
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A brief history of computer science showing when many of our modern "innovations" were actually invented.
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Mark Hurst, a friend of ArsDigita runs goodexperience.com which focuses on customer experiences using websites, and what not to do.
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21 October 2000
The gang over at The Spark is running a 30 lbs in 30 days contest. Only it's gaining 30 lbs in 30 days. They have a homecoming queen and her fiance locked up in a Boston apartment, feeding them all kinds of horrible, wonderful stuff. Reading the daily reports is fascinating, in the "look at that automobile accident over there" way.
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From the "huh?" department. RouterGod Magazine. Cisco router technical topics featuring guest lectures by celebrities, such as Darva Conger, Alicia Silverstone, Mister Rogers, and 7 of 9.
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20 October 2000
MonkeyAss found an interesting article on elections, specifically how the most popular politicians (e.g. McCain) don't make it to the main elections. It talks more of math and theory than current presidential election politics.
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Somoene with too much time on their hands. It's the world of Mr. Winkle, some ultra-cute kick-dog. Go visit if you need your daily cute and/or Flash overdose.
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19 October 2000
Quote of the hour. From MonkeyAss: "fear ebooks - lcd cuts are far worse than paper cuts"
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Woo hoo! Took my first Oracle DBA Certification test (first out of 5), and passed! 95% woo hoo!
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17 October 2000
Winners of the Foil the Filters Contest put on by the Digital Freedom Network. It shows that censorware Just Doesn't Work.
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and Eena sent me two. One about Ham, and One About Fudge
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redkeenan (the brother in law) sent me a Blue Mountain BD Card
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The Oompa Loompa song by the Berkeley Men's Octet. There's some amazing harmony in this song for those of you who like vocal music.
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happy birthday to me. wheeee!
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An oldie but a goodie. Light on the Net Project. A 7x7 matrix of floodlamps in a Japanese mall with remote-control via the internet. With prose worthy of Dr. Bronner, Click! a light, ON/OFF the light!
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16 October 2000
New Kernel Traffic, summaries of last week's traffic on the Linux kernel developer's mailing list.
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This is an oldie but a goodie: AOLiza Eliza + AIM + clueless folk.
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Chunks sent me this: Midget Chaos. A midget and a stripper in a wrestling ring. No, I won't tell you who won, and No, the stripper doesn't actually take anything off. The comments at the end are worth the price of admission, though.
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Virigina's beucratic infrastructure may have its faults, but dealing with the VA DMV has always been a joy. When I moved to the state, I did all my my licensing transfers, registration jazz, and title manipulations at one location in under half an hour. (as opposed to Pennsylvania, where drivers' licensing transfers involved 2 forms and 3 lines, and transferring the vehicle involved new titles and a notary) I had neglected to tell VA DMV that I had moved, and was dreading the need to fax forms, wait on hold, and get bounced around from idjit to idjit. After only 5 minutes on hold, one very nice lady on the phone handled everything, and even said that I could send back my plates and get a refund on the registration.
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15 October 2000
Joel on Software has a new mini-essay, this time on how to write functional software specifications that people will actually read. What I found especially amusing is the section on not using a template for specs and not having every spec be identical. Recently for ArsDigita I wrote up a spec for the "poll application" (a legacy ACS module). Here's the Documentation Style Guide page, including templates to follow, and sure enough I wrote a hard-to-read (but uniform) specification.
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13 October 2000
Here's a happy, brighten up your day article over at discover.com. 20 Ways the World Could End.
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I took a nap after giving blood yesterday (I don't react well to the vampires, but blood donation is a Good Thing to do anyway), and had a bizarre dream before being woken up.
Sharlotte & I were in downtown Leechburg (a fairly hilly town), walking along the street admiring the churches built into the hills and large grassy areas (which don't really exist in real life). In the middle of town, behind a chain link fence, a woman was assembling a diorama using large lime green pumpkins. She pulled out an electric bass and started singing Country 'n Western music. Needless to say, we walked away from there pretty quickly.
Then we found ourselves walking in front of Pulaski Academy, the school where I got my pre-college education. Walking inside we saw folks from Visix (my first job) scattered around at desks filling out forms. Jay, the Visix CEO was there too, filling out forms in the hallway by the main office. I ran into Rzolf who was moving stuff from the Journalism room to Mrs. Thomas' biology class room, saying he was trying to get a job at Visix again (even though Rzolf never worked at Visix, nor went to PA)
I suggested that he try to get half of his stock options pre-vested as part of being "re-hired". He said "good idea", and opened up a washing machine in the corner. Then Sharlotte's Aunt Ginger called and spoiled the perfect moment of clean clothes.
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From MemePool. You can get Elvis tunes in Latin. Alas, there are no mp3's on the site or via Napster. So, if you get the CD, lemme know.
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New track (entropy) over at MC Hawking.
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12 October 2000
Went grocery shopping today (wheee, what fun), and came across the new Heinz EZ-Squirt. It's green ketchup. Why they'd decide that green ketchup would make the world a better place, I have no idea.
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10 October 2000
ACS 3.4.6 is out (having just upgradaed to ACS 3.4.5). Thankfully I've found the cubbyhole where release notes are found
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9 October 2000
Stream has built the High School Site From Hell, for the South Fayette Township School District (Pittsburgh, PA). There's a webcam of a new school being built, daily real video school announcements, online parental resources. Also check out their Infrastructure page. Pretty insane.
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8 October 2000
Rzolf sent me this. IRS has too much time on its hands
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The October issue of Troubleshooting Professional Magazine has been put up. "Introduction to Security"
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7 October 2000
This response to a posting on Flutterby regarding the lameness in the news media sums up my gut-distrust of that whole industry. I haven't had a newspaper subscription in 10 years, don't watch network news, and I think the much-vaunted NPR news is worthless. After all, even NPR was running hourly Monica Lewinsky and Alian Gonzalas blurbs for an interminable amount of time.
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Mini-rant on software updates. I updated the QueenStitch development site's ACS from 3.4.3 to 3.4.5. Since I keep everything in CVS, I thought I'd just do a cvs -nq update and see what was modified. Turns out just about every file was modified, and 90% of the modifications are single space in the command. e.g. "doc_return 200" turned into "doc_return 200". So now I really don't know what changed :-(
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Quote of the day (from jo2y's T-shirt): "System Administration: It's a dirty job, but someone said I have to do it"
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Went to the monthly wplug (Western Pennsylvania Linux Users' Group) general users meeting. There was no particular presentation scheduled. STreAm brought his powerbook and MacOS/X and gave a pretty good demo(e). I helped fill in some of the weird technical details (like what Carbon and Cocoa are, etc).
Afterwards there was a "planning meeting". The group hasn't had its founder around for a while (although he's still active on the IRC channel after he moved to Seattle to work for Internap), and meetings have been somewhat moribund - no topics of discussion and generally no meeting announcements until the day before. DT came in wanting some order and structure which honked off the Old Timers. Finally there was a face-to-face meeting, and it wasn't bad. DT has that rare ability of sending 50 page email messages that honk off folks. But there was no violence, no shouting, no stabbings, very few gunshots.
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6 October 2000
Boy I wish I had infinite time. Between the websites I need to build, plus work, plus working on Oracle DBA certification, plus upcoming musical obligations, I wish I had time to play with balloons again.
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Rzolf sent me some pictures of the the Wild Apartment he and Walter are sharing out in Bezerkely. The Lamp in My Room and Self Portrait are particularly nice.
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Yikes. I can't beleive I'm doing such an egotistical thing like starting up a weblog. Oh Well. I have enjoyed reading Dan Lyke's Flutterby and Joel Spolsky's Joel on Software, and Joel said weblogs are a good way to improve writing skills (and I know I need to improve my writing skills), so I might as well.
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