Not So Fast

I’m trying to think of how they could make the Nobel Peace Prize more ridiculous. Ahmadinejad was the only thing I could come up with on the fly.

Has no one, in the world, done anything to forward the peace of the planet in the last year? Maybe they should only give them out once every five years if this is a problem

So 40s sci-fi. So cool.

Artists these days. They should just write letters to the editor.

But someday soon someone is going to paint a pastoral scene filled with Greek mythological features that will be enjoyable to look at and meaningful and it will rise to international acclaim. It will give rise to a new birth of art causing artists everywhere to rediscover line and color and perspective. A, what’s the word, renaissance, if you will. I can hope, anyway.

Yeah, yeah, it was a bad idea. But it’s not my fault.

Thundercats: The Movie.

The origin story expands on the major heroes and villains from the animated series, with the plot focusing on Lion-O coming of age as the leader of the Thundercats…The property revolves around a group of humanoid cats who must flee the planet of Thundera, which is destroyed. Once crash-landing on another planet, Third Earth, they must thwart Mumm-Ra, an evil sorcerer bent on killing them off.

Sounds fantastic.

Possibly the stupidest thing you’ll see today.

Hollywood strike may cripple US TV.

You Tube University.

Turkey is thinking about heading into Iraq to hunt down Kurdish separatists.

Flying is a hassle. Just look through the photos of London and save yourself some money and the embarrassing wanding.

The poor children who need governmental healthcare. The story. Mark Steyn.

He’s an internet expert, you know.

Amazon’s MP3s, while a great idea, have nothing*! No Carbon/Silicon. No new Dame Shirley Bassey. No Little Man Tate. No Rodrigo y Gabriella. No The Fratellis.

*nothing I’ve been looking for anyway

The IgNobel prizes have been announced. Among the winners:

“Linguistics” – Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, of Universitat de Barcelona – for a study showing rats sometimes fail to distinguish between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.
“Peace Prize” – The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon, the so-called “gay bomb,” that “will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other”.

Today, since it’s Friday, I guess, I decided to use a lot of commas, and also go to Starbucks for some coffee. The guy misunderstood me and I ended up ordering a white mocha. Or he might just be pushing them.

“Ah, I’ll have a orange caramel machiatto.”

“So that’s a white mocha, what size?”

*Eh, whatever, just get me through this line* “Grande.”

Anyway, it was delicious. I recommend it.

Star Wars defense system is coming online now.

And here we see the fundamental problem between consumers and the music companies.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy’,” she said.

Yes, ripping a copy of a CD you bought to your computer—much less another to your mp3 player— is theft, according to Sony.

Teeny tiny invisibility cloak for flatlanders invented.

Know why kids don’t know anything about WWII? You spend weeks talking about slavery at the beginning of the semester and in the last two weeks you cover the entire 20th century.

/also, 10/10

This is why you should be careful in curtailing freedoms you disagree with. The pendulum always swings.

A Bosnian muslim wanted to blow up the US Embassy in Austria.

He was foiled by a metal detector. It is mind-boggling that he would try to go through one with a backpack full of nails. Clearly, these people need to watch more movies with cunning plans in them. Maybe a Mission Impossible TV show marathon or something. I think even Get Smart would help.

But it’s the UN, what do you expect?

“The reason we couldn’t come to an agreement,” said South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, “was because most of us feel that this was a terrorist act” and every report says it was done by rebels, but some council members argued that they wanted to wait for the results of an investigation to find out what happened.

Scrappleface has a clean, new, newspapery look.

He must be sliding in the polls back home or something.

Because I don’t watch local news, I didn’t realize the anti-circus bunny theft was in Spokane. Until I read about it on an Australian’s blog. Weird world we live in.

On Slashdot a guy asks what he can use to replace his Thinkpad because he doesn’t want to support China give the situation in Burma. Well, I think there was one actual computer suggestion.

The best line:

You do realize Lenovo is selling the Thinkpads now because… *drumroll* they were the company that made them all along?

The government is getting a bit hot under the collar, killing protesters.

In case, you too, were wondering. Ah yes, another one of Britian’s colonies.

It has been argued by some people that the policy of partition always led to Civil War. It certainly did in India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland. This was no bad thing for Britain. It kept them busy and instead of fighting us they fought each other. This meant that it was no longer necessary to have a policy about them.

Lileks is on the front page of MSN (don’t go there, the horror), which means his site was hammered into the ground, which means my morning is incomplete. *shakes fist*

Why there won’t be meaningful illegal immigration reform. This is New Jersey, imagine what it would be like in Southern California.

How much that change in your pocket is really worth.

Nickel’s are where the money’s at.

Amazon’s new MP3 service is up, mostly cheaper than iTunes and DRM free.

The flaw would be that the music preview doesn’t work for me and they don’t have the ratings by song, yet. I want to know what the most popular songs on an album are!

The one large small portion of your life that hasn’t been taxed just might be, come November 1st.

A history or media and blogs. If you’ve been around a while, it’s nothing new, but it’s organized well.

A mathmatical discovery leads to parallel universes. Which, if you think about all those quantum level decisions, is a lot of universes. Of course, in some other universe I understand all that math.

It’s a distant universe.

It also brings up a lot of questions about the nature of personality and reality.

“Um”s and “er”s are helpful for listeners. Speaking out loud brings my brain to a halt which leads to trouble when I finish whatever I have stored in RAM which leads to, uh, pauses as I figure out what I am going to say next.

No one will make over $97,000. They will get their money through non-taxable means.

“It’s in bad shape. There is no hard-and-fast rule about how long a house can sit on the side of the freeway,” Caltrans spokeswoman Maria Raptis said.

Why isn’t there a rule about such things? I’m calling my state congressman now to make sure they get something on the books before it becomes an issue here.

It’s The Hobbit’s 70th Birthday. You should probably dress up as Bilbo for work.

Yeah, I’m just linking this because it has a Yes, Prime Minister reference. Which, perhaps to my detriment, has formed my picture of governmental workings. That does not make the point any less valid, however.

The show we used to watch in like, 2nd or 3rd grade. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t dreamed it up.

The theme song. Oy.

Ordinary World as done by Paul Anka.

Uhura is cast in the upcoming horror that will be Star Trek XI. Check out the clip at the bottom.

Also, this.

/please, oh please, let it be decent

California court admits it shouldn’t jump in the middle of a policy debate. I’m impressed.

Interesting Instapundit interview with Laura Ingraham concerning her new book. It really highlights the difference in left and right thinking on how to change the culture.

Syria, North Korea: No really, it’s cement.

Israel: Okay, we’re bombing it.

How to not be the first against the wall when the robots rise up.

For this, Google can be as evil as they want with their video ads and their firewall in China and the like.

This is why Wii is outselling everything else 3-to-1. You aren’t going to see these folks playing Halo 3.

“Microsoft has just published a patent application for advertising triggered by sequences of user actions, which describes how to interrupt game playing, music listening, and photo viewing with pop-up ads (‘the components may be integrated directly into the operating system’).

Of course you would want Macgyver in an emergency. Those other guys would just get you blown up, Macgyver would actually help you escape.

Normally, when a package shipped by UPS hits Hodgkins, IL, it’s 3 days away from me. For no apparent reason I won’t get this specific package for 6 days. Is Monday a shipping holiday of some sort? Can I get, and pay less for, this uber-slow delivery when I ship something?

Why do drugs when you can just think about 10 dimensions.

Yes, that will cut down on the stabbings.

I blame Canada.

Just on principle. Plus, it would keep the president from dissolving the government.

It’s hard to argue with a platform like that.

The fan on my uber-hip, 1gHz, Ubuntu, Gateway laptop just died. While I admit it makes for a quieter computing experience, any bets on how long before the heat fries everything? Just when I got it all set up nice and everything.

Yes, I did try giving it a whack to see if that would start it back up. It didn’t. I think it’s really broke.

I could replace it for $50! Or $15 on Ebay. Is it worth it? Really?

Anyone got an old laptop they want to get rid of?

UPDATE: Not to worry, everyone! A little elective surgery cleared out a dust bunny the size of Toledo that completely jammed up the fan. Phew. Tragedy averted.

416GB of love on a flash drive.

I’d just like to know what kind of astrogation program their using. You know, for when I build my FTL starship.

I’m linking to this because it has the phrase, “well, I’m not sure there’s a homeland-security color code for “Gaily Insouciant,”” in it.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Someone go see it and tell me if it will utterly destroy my opinion of the franchise.

Someone has done all the thinking for you. It’s one of those “why didn’t I think of that” ideas.

Of course, all it does is delay the day of reckoning. Although the chance for variety is intriguing.

You know that really awesome book of Greek Myths you read when you were a kid? No, not this one, the other one. Yeah, you can download the audio here.

See the hairism in this Fark thread. (Not for the easily offended, it is Fark after all)

So Fred Thomson is running for president. I’m ambivalent about him so far, he hasn’t said anything to really rile me up, he seems like a typical Republican and it would be nice to have an engaging president who can work a press conference. And I think he can beat Hillary. Please God, let someone beat Hillary. The vote is still, however, over a year away giving him plenty of time to disappoint me.

Remember reading about the Industrial Revolution? Remember reading about the standards of living before and after the Industrial Revolution? The earth was healthier then. People weren’t, but that’s not important. The poor of the world are used to that lifestyle, why not take advantage of that? It’s for the environment!

Climate Care celebrates the fact that it encourages the Indian poor to use their own bodies rather than machines to irrigate the land. Its website declares: ‘Sometimes the best source of renewable energy is the human body itself. With some lateral thinking, and some simple materials, energy solutions can often be found which replace fossil fuels with muscle-power.’

Spaceport America.

It’s Bob Newhart’s birthday. Lileks has the goods. One can only assume they’re laughing at some sort of physical comedy, as Bob Newhart was known for.

I’m going to try this next week. See if anyone notices.

A Top 15 greatest science fiction books of all time.

I just don’t like the blatantly political books, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Slaughterhouse 5. Not that they aren’t good books, just they’re barely science fiction.

If you want preach at people, do it like Battlefield Earth. 1 page of libertarianism and 999 pages of fighting aliens. I’m not saying Battlefield Earth is great literature, though it is an entertaining book, just that it has a good ratio of preaching to story.

Interview with Christopher Hitchens about Iraq. I love how he compliments whomever he is about to vehemently disagree with. Also, he is excellent at not being interrupted.

How the Nazis improved football.

Real football, not that commie pinko European football.

You can build one for the same price as a Macbook.

Granted the Tories aren’t in power, but when the government is paying for your health care, they get to make up whatever crazy rules they want. And what can you do about it? Wait for the other party to win, I guess.

“It is inconsistent with the concept of the responsible citizen to imagine that it is realistic for citizens, having paid their taxes, to expect that the state will underwrite the health implications of any lifestyle decision they choose to make,” the report states.

I’m thinking a responsible citizen wouldn’t be expecting the government to pay for their health care and therefore it’s none of the governments darn business what kind of lifestyle they determine they want to live.

A couple of interesting opinion pieces on Larry Craig and hypocrisy.

Columnist that made fun of Bush for falling off a Segway, falls off a Segway. And breaks three ribs.

I’d just like to announce to the world that I love Invader Zim. I realize it went off the air years ago, but I felt now was the time to announce it.

Just Zim and Gir. The rest of the characters I don’t care about. Well, Professor Membrane is okay. Also, it has an awesome theme song.

I listened to Virgin Radio Xtreme (geez, I hate any psuedo-hip variation on extreme, but that’s beside the point) while working on my computer last night and just now, I turned it back on and it’s obviously prerecorded because I noticed I’m within a couple songs of where I started last night and their going in the same order.

Lucky for me it’s a decent show.

This is why I don’t tell stories. They need more drama.

Will my internet connection work? Will I hear the same songs again next time I tune in? Will Virgin Radio sue me for defamation? And if they do and lose will the judge award me a ticket on Virgin Galactic in lieu of a cash award? Stay tuned for answers to these questions and more… I’ll work on it.

At least I didn’t post any pictures of my cats

…who are doing fine, btw.

Winning the lottery ain’t what it used to be.

I’m still pretty sure I could get by with $48.6 meeellion dollars. I’m willing to try if someone wants to give me $50 million as an experiment.

It’s like the most annoying kaleidoscope ever.

Long, but good.

Did you remember Manuel Noriega has been in US prison all this time for drug trafficking? I sure didn’t. Well, now he’s off to France where he’ll sit in prison.

It makes me sad that no one will be able to call 853-1212 anymore.

Well, they can call it, but they won’t get the time anymore.

Also from the article:

Along with her interpretations of the time and current temperature, Barbe delivered the bad news too, telling you that circuits in a specific area were busy, please try again later, or that your call cannot be completed as dialed.

And who will ever forget her heartbreaking rendition of “I’m sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service”?

My personal favorite is the “the number you have dialed has changed. Please make a note of it.” The persnickity please make a note of it kills me.

When the robots rise up and take over at least they’ll be cheerfully colored.

Everything that’s wrong with modern art all in one article.

Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don’t accept,” she said on ABC radio.

It’s not about beauty or eternal truths, it’s about having a discussion.

“But I just ask people to think about it a little bit more deeply because it is a very loaded work which means that there are so many different meanings.”

I think it means you should have just written a letter to the editor.

But the Uniting Church minister who chairs the Blake Society said his mission was to spark debate about spirituality in a world that was “cynical, degraded and in crisis”. Reverend Rod Pattenden said he didn’t expect the exhibition to be controversial, “because the Christian community doesn’t look at art a great deal”.

I wonder why?

Apparently I have a fear of social situations.

I doubt that this is the message God really wanted to get across to this lady’s neighbors.

Finally Europe’s plan for world domination can go forward.

It’s for kindergarteners, but mostly it applies to everyone.

Outline the picture first, then color it inside.”
Jacob Neihart, 6
“I was not afraid. My friends were not afraid.”
Danielle Lerdahl, 6
“Put antibacterial on your hands so you don’t get germs on your snack.”
Lenny Villegas, 5
“The best thing is that you get to play. The hardest part is that you have to do your work.”
Timber Wolfe, 6:
“Here’s how to make friends: Say, ‘Do you want to be my friend?’ ”

Anarchists plan their protests.

Do they not understand what they stand for?

Collector’s edition of Serenity is out.

In case you were wanting to get it for me:

I can’t believe he KILLED WASH!

Mark Helprin, read it all.

Present literary forms may spurn the individual, emotion, beauty, sacrifice, love, and truth, but they energetically embrace the collective, coldness of feeling, ugliness, self-assertion, contempt, and disbelief. And why? Simply because the acolytes of modernism are terribly and justly afraid. They fear that if they do not display their cynicism they will be taken for fools. They fear that if they commit to and uphold something outside the puppet channels of orthodoxy they will be mocked, that if they are open they will be attacked, that if they appreciate that which is simple and good they will foolishly have overlooked its occult corruptions, that if they stand they will be struck down, that if they love they will lose, and that if they live they will die.

As surely they will. And others of their fears are legitimate as well, so they withdraw from engagement and risk into what they believe is the safety of cynicism and mockery. The sum of their engagement is to show that they are disengaged, and they have built an elaborate edifice, which now casts a shadow over every facet of civilization, for the purpose of representing their cowardice as wisdom. Mainly to protect themselves, they write coldly, cruelly, and as if nothing matters.

But life is short, and things do matter, often more than the human heart can bear. This is an elemental truth that neither temporarily victorious nihilism, nor fashion, nor cowardice can long suppress, which is why the literary tenor of the times cannot and will not last.

So, iPhone is completely unlocked.

Astronomers have found a giant stretch of nothing in the universe. Somehow, this is news. “In the vastness of space, here’s a big patch of nothing.” Gosh Jasper, let’s call Reuters.”

Suddenly the whole thing seems ridiculous.

Okay, I thought the whole thing was ridiculous way before it really started gathering steam. Safe, eco-friendly, carbon neutral steam.

So, I was at Kid’s Camp from Sunday evening till Tuesday afternoon which means I didn’t get nearly enough sleep, ever. I had more caffeine in those two days than I have had in the previous months. And it’s not just the lack of sleep, it’s the lack of sleep, coupled with the constant stream of questions, coupled with the constant activity. Suffice it to say I was tired yesterday. But, I had to help a friend pack up stuff because she’s moving. No problem. Get home around 7:30 last night, force myself to stay awake until 9:30 on my laptop which forced me to unplug my alarm clock (no worries, battery backup) and fall asleep exhausted before I switched the plugs back (IMPORTANT PLOT POINT!).

All that to tell you that when I woke up this morning and my watch said 9:25, I wasn’t really surprised I didn’t hear my alarm two hours earlier. I didn’t panic, jump out of bed and scramble to the bathroom. No, I calmly said, “huh,” reflected on the fact that I didn’t even roll over at my usual getting up time—I must have been tired, got up, fed the cats, contemplated the flack I was going to take for being this late, thought it was awfully chilly outside, found some clothes, got ready for work, started my car to warm it and noticed that the clock in the car said 7:35. CURSE YOU WATCH!!!! CURSE YOU!!!!

Yes, in my sleep, I nudged my watch to the second time zone setting. Then failed to notice that the sun wasn’t really all the way up like you’d expect at 9:30, it was darn chilly outside still, and there was dew on the grass. So, I sat down for 5 minutes and then was on my way to work, on time.

Yeah, the ending is quite as dramatic as I would like. But I wasn’t two hours late for work either. So there’s pluses and minuses.

There probably won’t be a lot of posting around here today. Good luck with your day as you try to muddle through without my links to the vital news you need to know.

I’ve never seen such passion aimed against Firefox. Against IE, sure. But Firefox, no. His concern over his loss of revenue because he’s serving annoying ads is hardly going to get me to switch though.

A little baby powder can go a long way toward soothing those frictionous (of course it’s a word) places.

In contrast, the creeping section of the fault between San Juan Bautista and Cholame in Central California moves slowly and steadily, as much as an inch each year. Scientists have struggled to explain why the section behaves so differently.

…

Moore and Rymer think the more likely culprit is talc that forms along veins and fractures in the serpentinite due to the combination of shearing along the fault and a chemical reaction to hydrothermal water circulating through the rock.

That is awesome.

Scientists claim to have broken the speed of light. Now I anxiously await my FTL spaceship.

Aww!

94% of Americans are satisfied with their lives. Aren’t we just a happy bunch.

Anyone else a little nervous about how closely we’ve been paralleling the previous turn of the century?

Now I’m starting to be interested in satellite radio. A little spendy though.

The internet, it knows what you’re doing. And eventually, everyone else will get around to checking on that.

A look at the city your iPod comes from.

Science or science fiction?

Our search for meaning marches on.

Misery loves company.

Here’s a great picture for your desktop.

Tomorrow (8/11), I’m doing the run leg of the Coeur d’Alene Triathlon. 6.2 miles. 10 kilometers.

If I don’t make it, you can have my stuff. If I do live, fascinating tidbits about my morning will be posted here.

<later…>

Continue reading →

The widening credit squeeze? I think that would cause the universe to explode.

Lego is 75 today!

This is how I want to play my games.

Half of America doesn’t like journalists much. Especially internet users.

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don’t care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.

More than half — 53 percent — of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for “failing to stand up for America”.

First the North Pole, now Guam. Is the Russian military just bored and trying to start something?

“It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet [US] aircraft carriers and greet [US pilots] visually,” he said at a news conference.

“You can construct a time machine without exotic matter,” he said.

Time machines are now even more likely.

Shuttle’s getting ready to launch.

You missed it. Nothing exciting happened. Other than people riding rockets into space, of course.

Will Spore never come out?

Next time I fly across an ocean, I hope the plane has all the cool doodads Virgin America has.

Submarines….Prime Minister….Submarines….Prime Minister…. Submarines are going to win that battle. Canada’s going to have to do better if they want to win the North Pole.

A giant Lego man was rescued from the ocean in some Dutch city. Good thing Legos know how to swim. Bad grammar though. Maybe it’s a LOLLego.

It goes a bit awry at the end, but it really is the Ultimate Showdown.