March 2008
40 posts
“These numbers reveal that the sheer, disembodied lightness of the data world is...”
– “Massive Computer Centers Worse than Air Traffic - International.” Maybe soon we can all finally realize our lifelong dreams of having steam-driven computers. Or better yet, computers with coal furnaces built right in!
Kisch and the National Surveillance State →
A quote posted by Scott Horton on his No Comment blog. Munch is awesome in this context.
FRONTLINE: bush's war →
From the Important Things to Watch dept. “Watch the Full Series Online.” I plan to, and you should, too.
Twitter / fireland →
I grok twitter about as well as I grok sms, but still somehow I think this is funny, even though I don’t know what it is.
BrickArms →
It’s a GI JOE + LEGO mashup. Also, Colonial Marines from the movie Aliens — for flavor.
“She could not inspire a rugby team to a piss-up. In ordinary times, she’d...”
– Andrew Sullivan, “You Know It’s Bad for Clinton”
It's a Dada Mashup of the First Amendment and...
Signs of Boredom: Hyp-hens. A lovely thing.
Maps of the moon walker's routes on first moon... →
“After travelling hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the landing crew of the Apollo 11 lunar mission barely covered an area the size of a football pitch.” Strange Maps link via kottke.org, which includes a link to the orignal map overlayed on the moon surface.
“And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling...”
– Ben Smith’s Blog - Politico.com. Fascinating “pot, meet kettle” moment. The irony is that this ties Obama closer to the Clinton Whitehouse, which may tie him to the “old liberal mainstream” in a negative way.
“After its importance as food, the most useful role bread played at table was as...”
– How to Cook Medieval - Trenchers. And here I thought bread bowls were merely quaint affectation at certain restaurants.
Battlestar Galactica Producers and Cast Talk About... →
Warning: some semi-hints-at-spoilers in this article. But the zapper at the end is worth it — it explains a lot! (Also worthy of note: the prequel series Caprica has been given the green light. It will be set 50 years in the past and cover the origin of the modern cylons [aka “skinjobs”]. Sounds cool.)
Arthur C. Clarke: Off to the Great Rendezvous in... →
“The proper response to societal collapse should always involve mohawks and...”
– Phineas Gage’s comment in The A.V. Club’s review of the movie Doomsday.
“The reason many newspapers rely so heavily on editors—a reason rarely spoken—is...”
– From Jack Shafer in Slate: The Washington Post’s plan to drag the editing process into the 21st century. Wow. Just, wow. You would have thought reporters who couldn’t write would have been a dying breed back in, oh, say, the (original) era of yellow journalism, or something. But then,...
More on Clinton's Dirty, Rovian Politics
Here’s a great rebuttal by HuffPo blogger RJ Eskow to some of the Clinton supporter hatemail he gets. It’s truly frightening. These people are turning out to be the “D” version of the right-wing nuts (aka wingnuts) and ditto-heads that parrot every vile talking point vomited from the mouths of Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, and Malkin. A real “our candidate,...
That’s What I’m Talkin’ 'Bout
Leah Buechley made a Turn signal bike jacket using a wearable set of electronics called the LilyPad Arduino — which she also developed. Good stuff — I was just talking about turn signals on bikes just the other day. And a cool way to do it.
Are You on The List?
The Terrorist Watch List, that is. Roughly 1 out of 300 Americans on are it. Pretty soon it will be the “in” thing to be a member — although I’m sure the Gubmit won’t be issuing membership cards any time soon, since the list is so super-secret. The ACLU has a running Watch List Counter that tracks the estimated rate of growth of the list, and a page describing the...
A Mendacity Difficult to Fathom
This morning on NPR I heard this interview between Hillary Clinton and Steve Inskeep. I couldn’t believe some of the disgusting things she was saying, and I’m not the only one. Sullivan goes so far in that first link to label Hillary “a sociopath.” I’m not sure if that’s true in a strict DSM-diagnostic sense, but claiming Hillary is a sociopath would require...
“In other words, coming across what Dr. Biederman calls new and richly...”
– “Why We’re Powerless to Resist Grazing on Endless Web Data,” Lee Gomes, WSJ.com
“To put this crash into perspective, the worst car pile-up in US history involved...”
– Worst Car Pileup in World History? I’ve driven the stretch of I-5 through Coalinga. Other than the risk of injury or death, the worst part of being involved in a pileup there might be the stench of the 100,000-head cattle feedlot that sprawls along the highway there and causes the whole town...
“Based on national averages, a 40-year-old woman should be able to do 16 push-ups...”
– NYTimes: An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up. Where do they get these national averages?! Well, in any event, it’s good to know I can qualify as an average 40 year old woman. (Also a worthy related read: Wikipedia on Jack LaLanne’s fitness feats. He was quoted in the Times...
The New York Times > Opinion > Image > →
This is the New York Fucking Times, already. Where ever he is now, GG is smugly looking down on every kid who was too cool for D&D and is now reading about his life’s work in the New York Fucking Times. As a nerd, I find that kind of cool.
Deified and Demagogued - Yes, Another Tribute →
This one will probably be the last one. But it’s a Vast Internetwide Moment of Nerdery Nostalgia, so I am forced to wallow. And this one is interesting, and probably worth the wait of a few days. :-)
“Although umami is only a bit player in Japanese cuisine, reams of breathless...”
– Umami Expose: Yes, MSG, the Secret Behind the Savor (NYTimes)
“All in all, Dungeons and Dragons prepared a lot of us for business in the...”
– Joey Devilla. And you’ll never guess the context in which he said that. (And as an aside on this link, I should point out that Gygax was a living thesaurus of archaic lanuage. When I first cracked open the original AD&D Player’s Guide at the tender age of 10 or 12, I remember the...
This Week's Addiction: Laser Logic →
The usual suspects on IRC are discussing and sharing solutions, so it’s hard not to keep playing. So far, I’m up to 22. I have screenshots for the levels after 7, if anybody needs them. PS: Here’s a set of hints from a different version of the game. Thankfully, “laser logic” only has 25 levels in the version I’ve been playing.
Reason Magazine's Hit & Run on Gary Gygax →
“Gary Gygax saved more lives than pennacillian.” Well, I’m all for fantastical hyperbole, but I don’t think a thing called pennacillian ever saved anybody — unless that was the name that Chicken John Rinalidi gave to his 20th level cleric. (And speaking of names, what kind of name is “Chicken”?)
Check out Phun -- an Aptly Named Bit of Software →
Watch the Youtube video. This thing looks like a blast. Too bad it’s only available for Linux and Windows. The first thing I’m going to have to get whenever I buy a new computer is VMware or Parallels.
RIP E. Gary Gygax
RIP E. Gary Gygax. The image is a tasteful note from Wizards of the Coast. Slashdot’s article had some great comments, including: “Part of my childhood just failed its save vs death.” - ackthpt “I expect twice as many people demanding that the Pope canonizes ‘Saint Gary’, the Patron Saint of Natural Twenties, Preserver of Virginities; may your troubled heart...
