Business class alternative NYC <-> London

Saw a random advertisement for Silver Jet, which seems to be a new airline catering solely to business travelers. Seems like a really nice alternative to standard business class if your company's willing to pony up for business class in the first place...

What it's like to be a CS (or math) student

Child's Play makes the big time

Nice to see video games getting good press for once.

The growth in scale of Child's Play is mindboggling. And as the article mentions, video games make surprisingly good therapy for sick kids.

Today's creepy news

Girlfriend sexy? Maybe it's 'cause she's...infected with a parasite! Yay!

94% of Spanish bank notes have cocaine on them

Wow.

American view of the world

My bare lady

I...have no idea what to say. Except, don't open this at work.

Water...in...spaaaaace!

It's shit like this that makes me wish I could play around in weightlessness for a while.

RIP James Brown

Boo. James Brown died this morning.

You are an atheist

To celebrate Jesus' birthday, I thought I'd share one of my favorite quotes:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

-- Stephen Henry Roberts

Merry Christmas. ;)

New Transformers trailer

Please don't suck? Please? This is my childhood you're fucking with here...

Dear all 9/11 conspiracy theorists

Shut it.

You will be assimilated

One of the trickiest things that criminal law will have to deal with in the next few decades, assuming of course that it doesn't bury its head in the sand, will be the erosion of the idea of free will. Personally, I think this is something that needs to be absorbed into the public consciousness before we can ever get public policy right.

Are you lactating?

Or: mmmm...delicious baby...

Wisdom of the Crowds

I find this a bit disturbing. I'm not sure why.

New Firefox logo

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the new Firefox logo.

Relatedly, this seems to be becoming an internet meme...

Wow.

The failure and ineptitude of the 109th Congress summed up on one concise article.

Pennies not even worth a penny

Wow. Has the dollar turned to such shit that the metal in the coins is worth more than the coins themselves?

Deep.

Work

I really liked this article on, well, work that was linked from David Brooks' latest column. It's surprisingly Marxist given that it was linked by a conservative.

I'm not sure what to say about it. One of the asides really resonated with me, which is that self-esteem comes from one's own achievements in and of themselves rather than external sources. In some ways I think that's the point of the article: cubicle jobs are soul-crushing precisely because they are rote and involve no personal investment, and yet the relentless trend in modern capitalism is to concentrate what can only be described as the "interesting parts" of work into fewer and fewer hands, leaving only the assembly-line jobs leftover.

How chilling.

God has a dark sense of humor

This is some kind of divine poetic justice for the fact that Jeffords left the Republican party, isn't it?

Oh sweet baby Jesus, save me...

PCWorld's 15 best time-wasting sites piece may be the single most dangerous article ever created...

Family Guy voices

Dude...Meg is hot.

Solace in scientific research

I take some solace in the research that says night owls are more creative. Now, does the fact that I inverted my schedule imply I'm really, really creative?

Top 10 supercars

...according to some metric.

I actually still prefer the Lamborghini Gallardo to all of those (although I'd take Murcielago in its place, of course). Too bad I'll never have anywhere near enough money to own one. *wistful sigh*

Long distance relationship with my computer

From:
Subject: [Cs-grads] ah, technological progress
Date: December 10, 2006 4:28:42 PM PST

Just for the record, I would like to highlight a uniquely modern dilemma I'm having. I was given access to several machines. I now find I might need physical access to them.

Here's the problem: no one seems to know where they are. In, you know, the real world that some of us occasionally inhabit.

(names withheld to protect the guilty and because I probably will still need their help)

If I had more time, I would love to dwell on the philosophical ramifications of this fact. In the meantime, it's reminding me of this apocryphal story about UNC (my home town):

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2001-05/sunflash.20010521.3.xml

Nick

Indian wangs too small

Find your nearest male Indian associate and make fun of them for this.

The chronicles of Big Milk

A very nice example of how utterly fucking broken our system of government is. And just because pretty much every government out there is worse doesn't make it any better.

Johnny Cash doing Hurt

For some reason I've been in rather a sober mood lately. So, continuing in that theme, I felt like posting the Johnny Cash "Hurt" video, which is amazing (and, frankly, better than Nine Inch Nails' original).

The paranoid optimist

This is one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time. Bless you, Onion.

Your daily douchebag (12/8/06)

Today's daily douchebag, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, can, I think, easily take the cake for Douchebag of the Year if not Douchebag of the Decade. As much as Bush and Rumsfeld suck, I don't think they can really hold a candle to holding a conference on whether the Holocaust happened. I'm really, honestly having trouble coming up with even a hypothetical act that would rival the event in douchebaggery.

Congrats President Ahmadinejad! Truly, you are a douchebag among douchebags.

Sunset on Mars

I am not religious. I do not see the hand of God in this picture, as those who are would. What I see is the profound beauty of the universe, a beauty that exists despite the profound myopia and stupidity of humanity.

...and as I am tempted to make a joke here to cut the gravitas, I won't. I will let the moment stand. It is beautiful. That is enough. I am reminded of Jodie Foster's line in Contact:

"They should have sent a poet...they should have sent a poet..."

Family Guy and its inspiration

I had no idea these scenes were actually taken from viral videos!

This hurts me

What if chat rooms were real?

I can't ride a bike

I thought I could. Then I saw the video of this guy.

Fund more research! Fund more research!

Fund more research! Fund more research! (or at least restore the funding Bush cut [that fuckhead])

Well, there's good news and bad news

The good news is that I'm slowly acclimating to Chinese time.
The bad news is that I am not, nor do I have any specific plans to be, in China.

Sigh.

The porn vote

...and this kind of genius, boys and girls, is why Stephen Colbert now has his own show.

Say it ain't so!

You mean...Google is the next Microsoft? And it's a monopoly? And it's engaged in monopoly maintenance? But...but...Google isn't supposed to be evil!

Chickens of doooooooom!

Zombie chickens!

The terror that is Santa

For some reason, I find this set of pictures of children terrified of Santa deeply satisfying.

Chuck Norris and technicians

1. Guide to technician terminology
2. Facts about Chuck Norris

Allow me to highlight a few of the latter:

• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn't actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear.
• Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Every Playmate of the Month in the history of Playboy

Obviously, NSFW.

Very surreal.

Ewwww.

There was an episode of X-files like this.

It's a tossup whether the insects or the fungus are more creepy.

Science is cool

I'm sorry, but this is a really cool video of the sun. I know that makes me a nerd, but really, what doesn't these days?

Silly string: the difference between life or death

Support our troops: send them silly string today!

Your daily douchebag (12/1/06)

Today's douchebag: Walter E. Williams.
The winning entry today managed to compare social welfare programs to slavery. For that, Mr. Williams, you are our Douchebag of the Day!

"Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery."

Local students make good

The Nike/iPod stuff seems to be getting a good deal of press coverage. These are fellow students and in my security class with me. Go them. :)

It's all downhill

In the past few days, I've

• Played ping-pong
• Edited something on Wikipedia
• Made a reference to Kobayashi Maru

Apparently, I'm slowly making my way through every verse of Weird Al's White and Nerdy.

I hate being a stereotype. *sigh*.

50 worst? Really?

I take issue with your list, sir. You're really going to put Yanni ahead of Mick Jagger? Really? I mean, I'm not a huge Stones fan, but still...Yanni???

Frightening

I agree with a surprising amount of this David Brooks op-ed (TimesSelect...sorry).

Scary.

When the hampsters rise up against us, they're going to kick this guy's ass

Some people have way, way, WAY too much time on their hands...

...and today's douchebag is:

Dennis Prager! Go Dennis! What does he win? Well, boys and girls, he wins a shiny new can of "Shut the Fuck Up!" (from the makers of "God, you really are a douchebag, aren't you?").

There's this cute little thing we have in this American culture of ours you think you're protecting. It's called the Constitution. Maybe you've heard of it? If not, allow me to point out article 6:

...The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

That's pretty much as close as the Constitution can reasonable come to contradicting you, Mr. Prager, without explicitly saying, "Prager, you're a douchebag, and you're full of shit, so take your head out of your ass, and go home." The Framers kind of frowned on that kind of language though.

Silly superhero name generator

Henceforth, you may refer to me as Emperor Bootylicious. That or Path Mollusk. Ooh...I also like Commander Grope. And there's something about Penguin Searphim that appeals to me. Also, Alissa said you can refer to her as Platypus Vixen. No, really...she did. I swear. O:-)

Others from my first generating attempt:
Brushon
Charmroach
Cream Flunkie
Disoriented Blast
Drool Commander
Drunkborg
Emperor Bootylicious
Flopspider
Idiotsaur
Lash Whiner
Mistress Yawn
Path Mollusk
Polka Wheezer
Poodle Psychic
Professor Tricycle
Queen Mollusk
Sacred Scooter
Saint Yodel
Sergeant Haribrush
Shockpuffin
Sneezefire
Stitchyell
Veil Yawner
Vixen Gecko
Wig Crusher

Gingrich = douchebag

Yup. Gingrich. Douchebag. Enough said.

Some songs shouldn't exist

Or rather, some covers are a crime against nature.

Massive cahones

Man...good thing he put his money on a color instead of just one number, because betting your entire life savings on just one number on the roulette wheel would be, well, fucking stupid...

Note to self: never go to Colorado

There be idiots there.

See? Women are too thin.

Curvy women = good.
Anorexic, emaciated women passing for models = bad.

The side-by-side pictures are frightening.

Why Microsoft is broken

This gentleman's blog entry provides a very nice example of how horribly, horribly broken Microsoft is.

The closest close-up you'll ever see

Dear, sweet baby Jesus, if there were ever a link that was NSFW, it's this one.

Ever wonder what sex looks like from your genitals' point of view? Yeah, I didn't either, and I think my brain just exploded. Nonetheless: go BBC! :)

Thanksgiving explained in 8 panels

...by Choo-Choo Bear and a chinchilla.

Iraqi insurgency now self-sustaining

So, let me get this straight...the terrorists are more fiscally responsible than the Republicans? Great. Fantastic. This will end well...

Did you get that?

It is amazing to me that someone can speak so many words, each word itself carrying some meaning, and yet when this man strings them together, they become total gibberish. A quintessential example of obscurity passing for profundity.

Heart Attack Grille

Oh yes. The Quadruple Bypass and the Flatliner Fries had to be shared.

Incidentally...

I am immensely amused that Kevin Federline's newest nickname is "Fed-ex."

Inhofe = douchebag

I had to post this if for no other reason than the satisfaction of attaching a "douchebag" tag to it...

Please tell me you saw this coming the instant Republicans started whining about judicial filibusters?

The real China

Most of the time the censors in China do a pretty good job of filtering out the stuff that shows all the bad shit happening in that country, but every so often, bits and pieces filter through.

Libertarians are retarded

I'm pretty sure I don't even need to explain how retarded this essay is. Let me boil down the argument to its essence: because police brutality can happen, that means we shouldn't have police.

Yes, some Libertarians seem to honestly believe this.

What's truly frightening is that this guy is a professor at Auburn. Although maybe that means he's especially innocuous, and we should be grateful that certain corners of academia serve as shiny distractions for people that might otherwise be predisposed to do something dangerous with their idiotic ideas.

RC VR

A very simple but very cool idea. I totally want one. And it's making me want to take flying lessons again. Now that, you know, I _really_ don't have the money for it.

On condescension

Having finally finished the current sprint of algorithms (bleh...I never want to see another dynamic programming problem, although given that what I face next are complexity problems, the former might start looking damn appealing again...), I can go back to focusing on the important things: unsubstantiated opinions vehemently asserted as facts.

You know...blogging.

So, I read this David Brooks piece in the NYT (sorry, it's a TimesSelect thing...I'm a bit too much of a pussy to actually post the text as I fear people do, in fact, go looking for such things), and it was thought-provoking.

I actually kind of like Brooks. He's the closest I can think of to a conservative whose opinion I can actually respect. I have been desperate to find such people as I do think there is a coherent, informed conservative political opinion to be expressed, but it's being drowned out by politicized evangelicals and the idiots that pass for Fox News commentators.

But, I digress. Brooks' point is that we've entered an era of institutionalized condescension. There is a wave of both humor and documentaries lately, he argues, that plays off condescension to, I guess, the non-cosmopolitan segments of our population. Similarly, there is an air of the rest of America becoming simply a sociological specimen for our academic and comic amusement. Think of the interviews on the Daily Show. Think of Jesus Camp. Think of Simon on American Idol. And quintessentially, think of Borat.

To some degree, he has a point. Why didn't Borat make fun of the pretension of coffee aficionados, wine connoisseurs, Starbucks frequenters, and Whole Foods crunchy-granola types? Would it have been too jarring? Would it have jolted us out of our comfortable position of cultural superiority?

And yet, I don't buy it. To me, this is a reaction, not an action. For one thing, this is often less about cultural condescension than it is an assault on pretense. Simon from American Idol doesn't really fall in this mold...he really is a condescending prick, in my opinion, and I never really found it that entertaining. But people like Daily Show, Colbert, and Borat are picking precisely on people who take themselves too seriously. Yes, Borat makes fun of the rednecks at the rodeo, but let's remember he also subjected himself to tumbling around naked with a morbidly obese guy, and in the end, he found true love with a prostitute. Not to be too glib, but I seem to recall Jesus spending most of his times with beggars, whores, and criminals. I don't see the moralizing, supposedly anti-elitist masses that attend rodeos and hold supercilious dinner parties where they attempt to "culture" a supposedly uncivilized brute from Kazakhstan doing very much of that. In fact, I distinctly remember them running away screaming when a prostitute did show up at their door. Is it Borat that is condescending, or is Borat merely focusing a giant microscope on the willfully ignorant middle-American culture snobs?

I see this phenomenon as simply taking the gloves off in a culture war we didn't start. Well, okay, I guess technically we did if you regard the 60s as the beginning, but personally I don't regard returning to a world where we hide our problems and the ugly truths of existence under artifical social structure, illusory decorum, and contrived social protocol as a particularly good idea. The last 6, and arguably 12, and arguably 26 years, we have been subjected to a cultural revolution that sought to simultaneously throw out the window both the notions of meritocracy and social responsibility and replace them with cultural cronyism and egocentrism justified as divine providence. Gone is any notion that someone actually trained for and who studies a discipline might actually be better at it than your "plain spoken" buddy Ed whose only qualification is that you know him. Gone is the notion of social responsibility, replaced by a blind faith, one increasingly institutionalized, that one's material status in the world is directly compensation (or lack thereof) for one's moral worth and behavior.

The paramount achievement of this effort has been putting idiots in charge of the most powerful government on the planet. We literally have idiots running the country in almost every aspect of its operation. And we had to have a perfect-fucking-storm of disastrous results, corruption, and hyper-visible hypocrisy for the idiots to be just _barely_ nudged out of power. Is it any wonder that it has been in these same years that we have begun to see people (comedians, documentarians, etc.) finally willing to stop being polite and say, "Look, these people are ignorant, arrogant morons. And they're running things."

So Brooks will excuse me if I don't get too upset by this phenomenon. When the willfully ignorant with cripplingly narrow fields of vision and experience stop trying to run things they don't understand, then we can talk.

What happens when your computer's battery blows up

Huh. Apparently your computer's battery really could incinerate you.

Rape accountability = lewdness

Why are people so goddamn stupid?

Sack up and quit whining

Oh, fucking get over yourself, you damn loser. You were an asshole, and you let yourself be filmed being an asshole. That's no one's fault but yours.

How Duck Hunt works

For those of you that may have been curious, here's how the Zapper worked.

Take THAT Jesus vision freaks!

I found Jesus, and he's on a dog's ass.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Ever wonder what kind of fucked up childhood trauma leads to these kind of incoherent, paranoid ramblings?

An entertaining quote

Maybe it's just that it's 3 am, but I found this to be a great quote:

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
-- Rod Serling

Also liked this:

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
-- Woody Allen

Pellets = love

You know your self-esteem is way too low, and you have truly horrible taste in men, when...

The aptly named worst burglar ever

Dude...give up.

What _is_ a ho?

Personally, I think the first answer is better. A rake?! What the fuck is a rake?

I wish the milkman...

"I wish the milkman would de...liver my milk...in the morning..."

Probably one of the most bizarre things you'll ever see (yes, I realize this is the internet we're talking about). I can't fucking get it out of my head.

This article sucks

Okay, how can you write this article and not tell me what the fuck they were arguing about for six goddamn years?!

One never knows when a homosexual is about

Beware!!!

Kiwi

This may be the cutest and yet most depressing thing I've ever seen.

What the hell is "Web 2.0"

Tim O'Reilly's attempt to answer the question of what "Web 2.0" is.

Amazing how much of it is starry-eyed horse shit.

Dissent in the mainstream media???

Dear god...there's actually someone in the mainstream media not equivocating about how fucked up the Bush policies are? Wow.

Buzzkill

Stupid Khamenei. He and al Qaeda are really killing my "Fuck the Republicans!" post-election buzz...

Are you tone deaf?

Take the test!

I got 80.6% after not sleeping for 24 hours. I think I'm ok with that.

Nerd 911

Oh, Reno 911!...I really should watch you more.

The banana: sworn enemy of the atheist

Well, that's it. I was wrong. Clearly, the banana proves the existence of a divine creator.

Pretty space pictures

Damn impressive, you gotta admit...

Nick's 2006 Seattle voter guide

I know you've been waiting for it with bated breath. So without further adieu, going from more local to less local (all predictions made without looking at the poll numbers):

SEATTLE (CITY)
Referendum 1 - Adult Entertainment: NO.
This is pure puritan bullshit. Strippers are part of what makes this country great. Whoever sponsored this referendum needs to fuck off.

Prediction: NO. I don't think Seattle is that uptight. At least I hope not.

Initiative 91 - No Below Value Leases to Sports Teams: YES.
Meh. Fuck sports. The city needs the revenue, and even on the off-chance that it does drive away sports teams (which I doubt), the economic benefit of having them here is dubious anyway.

Prediction: NO. I think people are probably jittery about the Sonics leaving, and that will translate into a no vote on 91.

Proposition 1 - Transportation Funding: YES.
Yes, this money should come out of the general fund and not come from a levy, but the legislators aren't fucking funding this shit, so the money has to come from somewhere. Also, yay Robin Hood tax. :)

Prediction: YES. People likey their roads, and bikers likey their bike paths.


KING (COUNTY)
Proposition 1 - Sale of harbor property: Umm...yes?
This is a fantastic example of why voter propositions are dumb. I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not. It kind of smells like a real estate developer managed to get the ear of some councilperson, and the county will end up selling the land for too little, but who knows. Personally, I don't see why the county shouldn't just hang onto the land and continue to lease it as it will probably provide more money in the long term, but fuck...I don't know. King County should do whatever it thinks is best on this one.

Prediction: Aroo?

Proposition 2 - Public Transportation Sales and Use Tax: YES.
Yay public transportation.

Prediction: NO. I think people in this state are generally too libertarian to vote for something this progressive when it so directly affects their pocketbooks.

WASHINGTON (state)
Initiative 920 - Repeal of Estate Tax: NO.
Fucking Republicans.

Prediction: YES. I think Washington state is still too mired in the myth of the American Dream to vote this down. They'll view it as a tax on success.

Initiative 933 - Regulation of Private Property: NO.
Fucking land developers. Any time I read a rebuttal of the statement against and find the phrase, "I-933’s opponents will say anything to maintain big government control of private property," I know the people making that statement are full of shit.

Prediction: YES. I think people are shaky enough about the coverage of the Supreme Court case on eminent domain to vote for this as an obstacle to the gub'mint taking their land. That of course assumes they have memories that long...

Initiative 937 - Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy: YES.
Environmental no-brainer. If the fed isn't going to do this shit, guess the states have to...

Prediction: YES. Too easy to look at the gas prices on any street corner.

Joint Resolution 4223 - Personal Property Tax Exemption Increase: NO.
Honestly, I'm mostly being perverse. This is exactly the kind of shit that shouldn't be on a ballot. This is a budgetary issue that should be decided by the legislature. In principle, the state's hurting for money, and I don't feel like a tax repeal on property is the way to fix that right now, especially given the skyrocketing price of real estate.

Prediction: YES. Especially since there is no argument against published in the voter guide.


FEDERAL:
All Democrats. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could vote for a Republican this election. Honestly, can _you_ think of something they haven't screwed up?

Prediction: Democrats take the House, Republicans keep the Senate. Much as I dream that Republicans get their asses handed to them in both sides of Congress...

Doogie's gay!!!

Dude. Doogie's gay.

Best video game levels

Ah, this brings back some memories...

Best. Halloween. Costume. Ever.

Really, how can you beat a full functional Transformer costume??

More tech toys

I totally want one.

I have absolutely no use for it, but I want one anyway.

Sexy lobster?

Funniest commercial ever courtesy of MrsMalkav.

*sound of brain shutting down*

I think this is the most mind-boggling sentence I've ever read in a technical paper:

One technology that is emerging from the military world is meteor burst communication, which uses the transient radio paths provided by ionised trails of meteors entering the atmosphere to send data packets between a mobile station and a base [83].

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. How...? What? How the _fuck_ did someone come up with that?

"Hey...how can we send a radio signal to someone without anyone being able to track where it came from?"

"We could...umm...well, we could bounce the signal off of ionized particles created when balls of space rocks obliterate themselves in our atmosphere in a blaze of lethal glory?"

".......uh, Jones? Have you been smoking, injecting, or otherwise absorbing some kind of substance I should know about? I've been going to Starbucks a lot of years now, and I'm here to tell you that people don't come up with that shit off a cup of coffee..."

A brave new world of data mining

I just got the following message on Friendster:

-----

From:	kristine
Date:	Saturday, October 28, 2006 4:15 PM
Subject:	hey Nick
Message:	How's it goin? I'm Kristy, I just moved right near San Mateo and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :). I moved here a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I'm here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile... You're cute and I liked what you had to say :). I'm 22/F/single and I'm lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you're 26 and you're cute so I guess you're qualified :) My friend Jen from back home suggested I tried using friendster to meet people in my area. I just signed up and my profile sux hehe. I do have a blog/profile page at GirlyDiaries.com ... I have alot of photos and stuff up if you wanna see me. I left you a personal msg on my homepage and I took a new pic for you today. Come check me out when you have a chance, k? Lookin forward to seeyin ya, Kristy

-----

Christ...now they're tailoring spam message using personal information from my profile? Good god...

The Nintendo blowjob

No, not that kind of blowjob.

Anyone else out there have any clever tricks for getting your old NES games to work?

Stephen Colbert is a genius

Watching Colbert interview Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda while having them bake an apple pie is simply genius. There is no other word for it.

Robot Chicken and the Five Stages of Grief

I'm not 100% sure why, but even after multiple viewings, Robot Chicken's giraffe sketch still cracks me up. Particularly "anger" and "grief."

Shedding my last vestiges of Microsoft

They did it.

So I bought one.

I have a shiny new 15" macbook pro core 2 duo in processing, soon to arrive in my eagerly awaiting arms.

Get to fuckin'! It's for your health.

Sex is good for you! (like we didn't know that)

...

- Better teeth: Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and other minerals shown to retard tooth decay. Since this is a family Web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest--even Tartar Control Crest. Researchers have noted, parenthetically, that sexual etiquette usually demands the brushing of one's teeth before and/or after intimacy, which, by itself, would help promote better oral hygiene.

...

Did you know...?

http://immense-world.blogspot.com/2006/10/50-interesting-science-facts.html

Fashion designers are nuts

I think this fashion designer went on rather an extended acid trip and subjected several emaciated women to the results of it.

Fast forward to about minute 9 to start seeing some really bizarre shit.

Who says you can't have fun in the military?

"You are funktastically cleared for taxiway Bravo..."

Stewart on Bush's hypocrisy

There are too many good bits on Daily Show to repost here, but this one seems especially poignant...

Pics

I finally got around to finding a site to upload all my pictures. A goodly number of them now live at http://picasaweb.google.com/halcyonic, and any future pics will probably go there as well.

Not all my pics are there, but maybe the last 6 months or so should be there.

Another sign of the apocalypse

No, it's not a joke. The Boy Scouts really did just create an anti-piracy merit badge. I shit you not.

Yet another reason not to join that goody-two-shoes, homophobic institution...

Proximity to fame

Look! A NYT article on Chuck Thacker! I sat across the hall from him at MSR and asked him lots of annoying, stupid questions! I'm famous by proxy!

Bacteria fed by...radioactivity?

I think it's fairly clear that, in light of North Korea's latest action, this particular bacterium is destined to take over the earth.

Fuck Iran

You know what? Iran really sucks.

Disney...after dark

Perhaps the funniest thing I have ever seen...I just hope it stays up for a while.

White & Nerdy

"I'll ace any trivia game you bring on,
I'm fluent in javascript as well as Klingon!..."

A wee bit unsportsman-like

The order was a bit weird, but they're all funny. I think my favorite is the minor-leaguer...

Soul Kerfuffle: The View From the Top

Soul Kerfuffle: The View From the Top

A truly frightening memoir of a former WoW addict. The funny thing is that I went through a brief such period at the beginning of high school (became a guild leader, spent way too much time online, eventually quit because it was taking up too much of my life, etc...shut up, you already knew I was a giant nerd). Fortunately I wasn't old enough for it to really screw up my life. I managed to do that in other, more creative ways. :)

The 10 dumbest Congresspeople

Another one of those circumstances where I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

There are, actually, a few Democrats on the list. But the Republicans definitely take the cake, and moreover they happily reign supreme in the top four slots.

Sexy soccer

This is just funny. It's really not as sexy as it should be. I actually was having trouble figuring out why. I think it's because they're terrible, and because they're terrible and flailing around, they lose their kind of...I don't know...mystique. They're sexy when posed because they have these perfect bodies, and the clothes are designed to accentuate that. But when they scamper around, it becomes apparently how ridiculous the clothes are, and the girls just look stupid.

I think the funniest thing is that the guys seem to almost be paying more attention to the soccer than the girls. They're less drooling than getting frustrated by how badly the play is. :)

Oh, and just to warn you, the end borders on soft core porn (there are brief naked boobies). Oh, you gotta love the half-naked locker room girl-on-girl massages at the end...

The rise and fall of Friendster

A really interesting article on the rise and fall of Friendster.

Friendster really is dead at this point, sadly. As the article repeatedly points out, the thing most directly responsible for Friendster's death was its failure to deal with technical problems. Anybody who used the site a few years ago knows that the thing just ground to a halt for a good several months. It became unusable. So people left.

What I didn't know was that part of the reason that the technical problems weren't fixed was that the idiot boards the VCs put together were too busy trying to think up grand new features and figuring out how to compete with Yahoo and Google (what???), all the while failing to pay attention to the fact that the site was, you know, dead.

To me, this is a cautionary tale about how arrogant VC can really fuck things up if you're not careful. Granted, Abrams also sounds like kind of a douche, but I think that's largely secondary here.

As an aside, I can't believe Google bought YouTube for a billion dollars. A fucking billion dollars. For a company that isn't even turning a goddamn profit. And doesn't really have a business model. And would have been sued for copyright infringment long ago if it actually had any money. You'll notice that Google has a bunch of money. I would not expect the not being sued thing to last very much longer...

Am I as fit as a Navy SEAL?

No. No, I'm not. Not even close. I don't even think I finished reading the description because it was too tiring.

World's worst hacker

Okay, quick background for the non-nerds out there: there's one critical piece of information you need to know about the IRC transcript of a "discussion" with the world's worst hacker, and that is that the ip address 127.0.0.1 will always connect you to your own computer (it's a loopback address).

With that in mind, I give you the world's worst hacker.

One of the world's more impressive pranks

What would you do with 600 galvanized screws?

The story of Graphing Calculator

The story behind the Mac OS 9 "Graphing Calculator" program is quite simply fascinating. Quick exerpt:

People around the Apple campus saw us all the time and assumed we belonged. Few asked who we were or what we were doing.When someone did ask me, I never lied, but relied on the power of corporate apathy. The conversations usually went like this:

Q: Do you work here?
A: No.
Q: You mean you're a contractor?
A: Actually, no.
Q: But then who's paying you?
A: No one.
Q: How do you live?
A: I live simply.
Q: (Incredulously) What are you doing here?!

Blue Fund

There's something deeply amusing about the Blue Fund.

McCain behaving like a Republican

Sometimes I forget that although McCain is nowhere as near as bad as GW and his crew, he's still kind of an opportunistic ass sometimes.

The power of search

Some of the shit that shows up in Google Code searches is really entertaining, even to non-coders.

...and Rumsfeld may be the biggest douchebag of them all

God, Rumsfeld is such a fucking prick. First we have the asshole shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, now we have him selling fucking nuclear reactors to North Korea.

It continues to blow my mind that _anyone_ still approves of this administration.

Babies _are_ useful!

Wow...clearly I've been too harsh on babies as being useless and annoying. Turns out they're just annoying.

Katrina's upside

See? Things work out.

This isn't exactly the sound track I had in mind

This of course begs the question of what the soundtrack actually is...

An article and a test

Good article on the Colbert phenomenon.

As an aside, take this quick quiz from said article: which ones did Colbert say, and which ones did Coulter say? (answers in the article)

1. “Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

2. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.”

3. “I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.”

4. “Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of ‘Kill everyone who doesn’t smell bad and answer to the name Muhammad.’ ”

5. “I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Muslim, or Jewish. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

6. “[North Korea] is a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to the rest of the world.”

7. “Isn’t an agnostic just an atheist without balls?”

Modern darwinism

Just in case you haven't seen it, I direct you to iamfacingforeclosure.com.

The stupidity is _stunning_. I'm currently rooting for the lenders, quite frankly.

Also, consider browsing the comments. Some of them are hilarious.

Reluctant Nomad: Insults - they just don't make them as they used to

Reluctant Nomad: Insults - they just don't make them as they used to

Tierney quote on natural selection

Thought this was worth sharing:

Women tells researchers they’re more likely to marry a man who takes risks to help others, like rescuing a baby in a burning building. There’s some evidence they admire guys who try edgy sports like bungee jumping, but there’s also evidence they frown on risk-taking just for the thrill of it. They especially don’t want to marry guys who jeopardize their health with frat-boy stunts like binge drinking. That would cover the beer-chugging scene in the “Jackass” movie, and presumably most of the other stunts too.

So the Jackass phenomenon doesn’t seem to be a case of runaway sexual selection. It looks more like runaway nonselection, as the anthropologist Lionel Tiger dubs the process. The men have become so determined to outdo each other that they don’t care if they’re endangering themselves and grossing out potential mates in the process.

It’s the same runaway process that causes women to endanger their health by starving themselves to look like fashion models. Extreme thinness is a status symbol to other women, not men. Men prefer women who are normal weight or plump, but the stick figures on the fashion runways aren’t trying to appeal to a male audience. Like the guys on “Jackass,” they’ve lost sight of the other sex because they’re so busy trying to impress their own.

Girls, keep re-reading that last paragraph until it sinks in. It is to my continued frustration that women don't seem to accept this.

Woz

Wozniac is currently presenting in the atrium of the UW computer science building.

I don't really have anything to say about this other than the fact he is a giant, giant nerd. It's clear why Jobs was the public face of Apple. And in all these years, it's clear he's only acquired a marginal amount more of social aptitude.

In his defense, I think he comes from a different world. The beginning of personal computers was created by serious, hardcore nerds playing with circuits, and they were driven by competitive engineer egos. These were people in basements soldering hardware, and it kind of explains where the loner, social outcast nerd culture came from.

I respect that, but I also feel that that same culture that generated PC innovation is now the biggest impediment to progress. We now live in a world where performance is no longer the most important aspect of computing; it's usability and reliability. It's much more important that your computer work reliably and do what you want it to than it is that it do it as fast as humanly possible. Similarly, we now live in a ubiquitously connected world. The most important use of computers is in connecting people and enabling cooperative task accomplishment. Designing those systems involves much more understanding of _people_ than designing the Apple II did.

I admire and respect what people like Woz did to create the discipline I now work in, but I don't want the next generation of engineers to follow the same model of development.

*contented sigh*

Oh, how I missed you Jon Stewart. Getting to finally see you again inspires deep feelings that, frankly, I don't think I'm quite ready to deal with...

Also, Daily Show just showed a clip from Fox News that was in turn showing a clip of boy-fondler Mark Foley where the information bar identified him as "(D - FL)."

Wow.

I knew Fox News was partisan, but...wow. That's just a whole new level of douchebaggery.

From the Star Trek rumor mill

Thank. Fucking. God.

They need to have booted everyone associated with Star Trek about 10 years and, oh, 4 movies ago. Star Trek 6 was the last half decent one.

Robot Chicken Star Wars skit

For those of you that don't watch Robot Chicken.

The ultimate car wash

You have never gotten a real car wash.

No, seriously...you have never gotten a _real_ car wash.

Vocabularific!

Fun word: "nonce."

Ironically, "nonce" is not a nonce.

Yeah. Think about it.

I get my news from the Daily Show

Things that anyone who watches the Daily Show already knows include...

Hastert is also still a douche

Now, now, Mr. Hastert...the man did proposition underage male interns. That's not so much "out to get you" as deeply disturbing and wrong.

More on the additional safety benefits of implants

Look, seatbelts are mandatory...what about, you know...

...

I'm just saying.

How much is Wyle E. Coyote getting in consulting fees?

I think someone in the Air Force is watching too many Looney Tunes.

A quick thought

At what point will CS nerds realize that black leather trench coats are and never were cool, and that they might as well wrap themselves in a big bullseye that screams, "NERD!!!"?

A problem of anatomy

Granted, Futurama did a show to the same effect, but the problems inherent in dating a mermaid still are cause for hilarity.

Borat strikes again

There is just no part of this that isn't funny...

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords

Ahhhh!!! Ruuuuun!!!

Ow...quit it.

There are so many entertaining parts of this story on the Chinese using lasers to blind satellites. The fact that they did it, the fact that Iraq tried to disrupt GPS to interfere with GPS-guided bombs and had their efforts destroyed by a GPS-guided bomb...endless entertainment.

Sweetheart, it's for a good cause, I swear!...

Yes, it's that time of the year again...the Boobie-Thon!

Yay union!

I'm now officially part of the UAW 4121. Go me.

Unpatriotic liquids update

Hey, look! A pointless, knee-jerk security measure just went from catastrophe to boon for the in-terminal retail shops! How much do you think the prices are going to jump?

Incidentally, I would be putting up more posts, but I honestly have not been reading anything interesting lately. The pre-election scene is weirdly quiet, at least in the sense that nothing really notable seems to be happening. Yeah, Santorum is lagging in the polls, etc. etc. But nothing really interesting. Sigh. I continue to predict that the Democrats will pick up a few Senate and House seats, but not enough to form a majority. Then, we'll have to endure another two years of Republican idiocy before Hillary fucks up any Presidential chances the Democrats may have had.

I guess the one interesting thing that's happening is that McCain is emerging as the Republican front-runner. Sadly, the Republicans seem to be realizing that Frist is an unelectable tool. Shame...having him run would have been one of the few things that might have given Democrats a chance. But McCain seems to be doing a passable job at cosying up to "crazy base land," which is depressing. I still don't really _like_ McCain, but he would at least be a step up from Bush, and I don't think he's beholden either to the Religious Right or the neocons. At least, not yet. He may find himself in that position if he is elected and wants to get anything done.

Mac Hall go bye-bye

Mac Hall is calling it quits! Boo!

Why is everything familiar evaporating at the same time?

Plus, I'm not getting cable (nor internet access) until October 4th. Booooooo...

Branson's Billions

Is it me, or has Richard Branson been playing "Billionaire Catch-Up" for a while now? First he tried to copycat Trump's tv show, now he's trying to copycat Buffett's mindboggling charity. It really makes him seem like a poser...

Also, climate change? Really? I mean, don't get me wrong, we need to do something about climate change, but I feel like there were better uses for that money. Climate change is largely a political rather than monetary problem. How about vaccines for other shit? How about infrastructure for the third world?

I just feel like the money should be spent where it can be best used. AIDS is clearly a pressing, immediate issue in need of serious cash. Global warming? Much more esoteric, and not clearly starving for cash so much as it is stonewalled by Congressional idiots and energy lobbyists.

The new internet space race

Please god let this mean more CS research money...please god let this mean more CS research money...

Of course, I have no faith the fucktards running the government would actually have the foresight to see that if they don't put money back into research we'll be screwed in about a decade, but I can dream, can't I?

Business school students cheat most

I'm trying to act surprised. I really am.

If Gore were president

Bittersweet Saturday Night Live comedy: What if GW Bush Hadn't Fucked Up the Country?

Male ingenuity

My roommates have gerry-rigged a makeshift antenna out of alligator clips and a fork to watch the Ravens game.

You heard me. A fork.

God bless a house with four guys in it.

Of course, I'm the idiot making comments like, "There's a team called the Texans now?!" Honestly, though, only Texas could have the profound lack of imagination necessary to come up with "Texans" as a new team name. There is no doubt which state GW Bush came from. I can just hear that planning meeting now...

"Sir, we need a new team name."

"Uhhh...how about Cowboys?"

"Cowboys is taken, sir."

"How about the Texas Cowboys?"

"May I suggest a name not cowboy-related, sir?"

"Not cowboy-related?! How will they know we're from Texas?!"

"Well, sir, I suppose we could...heh...just call them 'Texans'..."

"My god...you're...you're a genius!!"

"..."

Citizendium

About fucking time.

This gave me some hope for the future of online knowledge. I continue to despair at wikipedia's blind and short-sighted zealotry.

Wikipedia is dead. Long live Citizendium.

Yay government!

Democracy at work.

Sigh.

Incidentally, 800th post. Woo hoo!

Hip hoppers get laid, classical buffs puff

I don't know what it means, but it's interesting...

Harvard kills early action

Yay Harvard! Methinks early admission programs should be killed entirely...

My life as etch-a-sketch

Just to warn you, I have no fucking clue what this entry is going to say, or if it's going to make any sense whatsoever. I'm going to try to do a quick run down of the past few days.

I just drove 1100+ miles and totally up-ended my life. I feel very...weird. Being a boy, I'm having trouble verbalizing this particular sensation, but for now "weird" will do. In the past 3 days, I've changed job, geographical location, and relationship status. (I try to avoid making this blog excessively personal, but I will say that the latter sucked majorly. It sucked at the time, it sucks now, and will undoubtedly continue to suck for a while yet to come.) It really is like I grabbed my life by both sides and shook it violently, and now I have this really weird blank slate. Thing is, there were parts of the picture from before I really liked, and now they're gone. At the same time, I'm looking forward to finding out what can be made out of the blank silver shit in front of me. So it's not so much good or bad, but really...weird.

But, anyway...let me stop being melodramatic and share some observations about my trip. Or rather, at least mix in some directed anger and humor with the melodrama, self-involvement, and self-pity.


Observation #1: Everyone in Marin County needs to die.

The very first part of my trip was painful. Driving out of San Francisco on the Golden Gate was surreal. I think I may have actually spoken the words "goodbye" out loud at some point. It was very weird (again that word) to think this was a one way exit from The City. I'm sure I'll be back there at some point, but...weird. I've moved a lot of times, but given my health, very few of my exits have been made by car, and the ones that were were so long ago as to be only very blurry memories. So it was jarring to leave in such a relatively slow and picturesque way.

Unfortunately, such philosophical thoughts were cut short as I slammed (not literally, fortunately) into traffic about 5 miles out from the Golden Gate. Fuuuuck. Fuckity fuckity fuck. I was hoping it was a pocket due to an accident or something, but no. The goddamn traffic continued for a good 60 (yes, 60) miles. I hate traffic to begin with, but the fact that I kept thinking about how most of these people were shallow California yuppies with too much fucking money going up to wine country for the weekend so they could be wine snobs just made me seeth. The worst part was when it would start to clear and then randomly screech to a standstill again. I was about ready to throw something at the next SUV I got behind.

I concluded, therefore, that everyone in Marin County needed to die, and I stand by it.

The rest of that day's drive was pretty if uneventful. I followed US-101 up through the redwoods (which I saw by dusk) to Crescent City, which is in northern California just shy of the Oregon border. There I stayed at the Hampton Inn.


Observation #2: Calling yourself a resort doesn't make you one.

I was underwhelmed by the Hampton Inn (had a longer name that involved the word resort). It was clearly trying to be a fancy resort and failing miserably. It was like a chef trying to take a twinkie and arrange it decoratively on a plate and call it some kind of special dessert. It just didn't work. I mean, the room was fine if unremarkable. The bed was damn comfy, but it was just your average hotel room. But what really got me was the "breakfast." I didn't think it was possible for a breakfast to put on airs, but that's what it was doing. It had these elegant metal holders for the food, and so you ended up with this modern-looking sculpture vaguely resembling a tree with little boxes of Frosted Flakes on the ends. And you know those metal food warmer things they have at Sunday brunch buffets? Well, it had one of those. Just one. Sitting by itself. And it had steamed potatoes in it. That's all.

The whole thing was like what you would get if you told Larry the Cable Guy to make a fancy resort. Anyway, as I said, underwhelmed. The beach was pretty though.


Observation #3: State highway patrol officers are glorified luxury tax collectors.

I had planned to take 101 up the Oregon coast, but after looking at a map, I decided that I didn't want to deal with windy two lane roads all day, and that the view of the ocean wouldn't be worth it. So, I cut over to I-5 and took that north instead. To my surprise, I-5 in Oregon was some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip. The highway is elevated much of the way, so you get these long vistas (not the Windows kind) and beautiful rolling hills.

For the hell of it, I decided to stop in Portland simply because I'd never been in Portland before. Amusingly, I missed Portland the first time around. The city center is small enough that it's gone after about 2 or 3 exits, and I suddenly found myself on a large bridge leading away from Portland. In my head, I was clawing at the passenger window sniffling, "But...but...I wanna be down there!" Fortunately, I had the good sense to actually keep driving. Eventually I turned around and made it into Portland.

I kind of wandered around for a while until I saw some kind of fair going on at the waterfront. So, just for the hell of it (and since I needed dinner anyway), I parked in a garage, hoped to god no ruffians and/or thieves figured out the shit I had lying in my car, and ambled towards the fair.

Little did I know, the fair turned out to be a hemp fest. Now, I'm as open-minded as the next guy. I don't have a huge problem with people who smoke pot, and it's absolutely ridiculous that alcohol is legal and pot isn't, particularly given the obvious therapeutic value for some people. That said, there is such a thing as being obsessed. Cartman's voice kept echoing in my head: "God...damn...hippies!!!" and seeing the live reggae band and hackey sack circle didn't help matters much. I kept seeing these tents filled with way, way too many bongs in them that were clearly hand made (because the glass was cloudy and impure), and I resented the vendors for being such goddamn stereotypes. You _know_ these fuckers spend their entire day constructing these bongs and get giddy to the point of orgasm at the prospect of making weed their actual profession.

Does it mean I've gotten too old or swung dangerously towards conservatism that instead of thinking, "Aw, what wonderfully free spirits!", most of what I thought to myself was, "God, grow the fuck up."? In my defense, I'd rather spend a week with those guys than 10 minutes with anybody in the Religious Right.

Anyway, the day was going swimmingly until I was driving down US-26 at dusk and saw those delightful red and blue lights flashing behind me.

Mother.
Fucker.

I was livid. It was all I could do to be civil to the cop (since getting pissed at the guy can only fuck you up more). The goddamn asshole cited me for doing 71 in a 55. He didn't even knock it down, the jackass. The following thought kept raging through my head:

"I've been driving for over 10 goddamn years, and for the first fucking 8 of those years, I didn't get one single ticket. Not one. My driving style hasn't changed one iota, and yet, in the past 26 months, I've gotten 3 speeding tickets. What's the one thing that _did_ change in the last 26 months? I splurged and bought an IS300. These fuckers are picking me off because my car says I'm a fucking revenue stream. Fuck them. Fuck their families, and fuck them. Fuck them and their selective goddamn enforcement. Fuck the legislators who refuse to fund the highway patrol and make them generate their own revenue through tickets. Fuck the insurance company who is part of the only business in America legally allowed to discriminate against me based on demographic fucking averages. Fuck them all. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckitty fuck fuck! Fuuuuuuck!"

Suffice it to say, I wasn't in a charitable mood. I drove angrily for the next hour or two until I got to my hotel.


Observation #4: The reason the best hotel in Astoria, OR is only $250/night is because it's in Astoria.

Unfortunately, I still hadn't purged the rage when I arrive at my hotel in beautiful Astoria, Oregon, which was fucking BEAUTIFUL. The Cannery Pier Hotel in Astoria may well be my favorite hotel anywhere ever. At $250/night, I think I liked it even better than the $400/night room in the Halekulani in Honolulu. The price difference has to do, no doubt with the difference between Honolulu and Astoria as tourist destinations. But still.

Every room in the place has a view of the Columbia river, as well as the grand and imposing Astoria Bridge. You can see Washington's Olympic Peninsula in the distance, and your room it literally hanging over the water of the Columbia. And the hotel room itself was awesome. The bathroom was the size of a dorm room...it was airy and had a huge tub as well as a shower. There were shutters covering a large indoor window the opened into the main part of the bedroom which would allow you to either easily converse with someone in the bed (while you were in the tub) or enjoy views out the window from either the tub or the shower. The bed was huge and comfy, there was a comfortable little desk to put your laptop next to a gas fireplace, and there was even a little patio if you wanted some air. The bed was huge and oh so comfortable. All of this was decorated in a very simple, traditional-yet-modern way with elegant furniture, and gave an open, warm, inviting feel.

It was fantastic. I wish I had had more time there. And, yes, I wish I hadn't been alone there on a number of levels. :-/


Observation #5: The first word to leap into your mind when looking at a hillside should not be "shaved."

The final day of my travels took me up around the Olympic Peninsula before careening headlong into my new home city of Seattle. There's a much more direct path between Astoria and Seattle, but I had wanted to see the Olympic Peninsula for a while, so I took the scenic route. The most surprising part about my journey today was that it was remarkably unscenic for large swaths. Up until about 20 miles south of Forks, WA, the trip consisted of slowly decaying logging towns consisting of dirty, falling apart houses and business buildings with "for sale" signs up. It was really depressing. The other depressing part was the huge amount of clear-cutting I saw. I was expecting to see rolling, evergreen hills, but instead what I often saw where these essentially shaven landscapes that looked like something out of Dresden. It was quite depressing. Quite often the swaths of destruction brushed up right against the bounds of one or another national park. I don't know it for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that much of this was done since the rise of GW, and that it was some kind of legal sleight-of-hand that allowed the loggers to have at these areas.

It pissed me off. I do consider myself somewhat of an environmentalist, but I try to be pragmatic about it. And this was just stupid. It's not like there's a shortage of fucking paper. Last I checked, paper was ridiculously cheap, and the computerization of business gets rid of the need for more and more paper every year. We didn't fucking need to expand logging, and even if we did, destroying areas clearly visible from a major highway is just idiotic when there are plenty of such areas _not_ visible from the highway. Not only is permitting the logging a cynical political stunt to appease the poor (literally) logging communities temporarily, it's killing tourist dollars by scarring what is otherwise a beautiful area that, even if you don't want to save it for purely conservation sake, would be a draw for campers, eco-tourists, etc., and I would probably make much more money for the area in the long term. Fucktards...

Anyway, parts of it were indeed pretty. Plus, it was sufficiently deserted in long stretches that I had fun playing with the cruise control. It was sadly entertaining to watch the cruise control try to maintain a constant speed in the face of hills. (Look, you get bored after 3 days of driving).

Plus, I saw the best town name ever: Humptulip, WA. What a fantastic fucking mental image.


Observation #6: Being in a car that's on a boat is a truly surreal experience.

Not much to say here...just wanted to note that I ended the journey...purposefully...by taking the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. It's a quick car ferry that goes across Puget Sound. It was very nice to have the very final leg of my journey be on a boat approaching the night-lit skyline of Seattle, which when all is said and done, is really, really pretty. The two best views of Seattle are coming north on I-5 and from the ferry. I got to kind of stand in the wind at the front of the boat and let the fact I was essentially starting a new life in a new city, new even when compared to the city I lived in when I last lived in Seattle, sink in. Fortunately, I soon realized how close I was to having a Leo DiCaprio Titanic moment, so I scurried back inside.

One last thing: I entertained myself during the drive by listening to audiobooks. The three main authors I listened to were David Sedaris, George Carlin, and Lewis Black. A lot of people I know love David Sedaris, and he did make me laugh on occasion, but to be honest I found him a bit...I dunno...esoteric? Perhaps a better description would be cold. Maybe he's just better read. His live performance at Carnegie Hall was a bit better because you got the audience reaction, but he reads in such a monotone that I couldn't take it after a while. George Carlin was his usual, wonderful, cynical, perverse self. He is a fantastic narrator, and he is a fantastic narrator in particular of his own material.

Lewis Black I'd never heard reading before, and I don't think I'd read any of his stuff. I've seen his standup, so I know what his material is like. I saw a lot of negative reviews of his audiobook from (stupid) people expecting it all to be just like what he does on the Daily Show. It is a little known fact (apparently) that Lewis Black doesn't, in fact, write the stuff he performs on the Daily Show. The Daily Show writers do. They're just so goddamn talented that they can give a different voice to each personality on the show. There's a reason those fuckers have won so many Emmy's. Lewis Black's stuff is actually slightly different. To be honest, it's generally much deeper and more intellectual, and I was very impressed with him. Some of it is downright introspective rather than purely comical, although the comedy is never far away. I really liked it, almost better than Carlin because it was more of a narrative. I recommend it if you're bored.

So now here I sit in my barren living room in Seattle, my laptop battery running near empty and my connection to the internet through my phone and therefore painfully slow. I hope to god my shit gets here tomorrow as the driver suggested it would be. But still...very weird. I'm in my new home, but I feel quintessentially homeless. My home was dissolved, and the familiar seems very far away right now. I know I'll get used to it, but for the moment, this is where I am: floating, untethered...a stranger in a strange land.

Mmm...sacrilicious...

Wow...I just...wow. Poor grandma?

Nice puddy

Oh come on...she needs a good home. Okay, yes, _and_ an exorcism...

Lies!

This is horse shit. You know how I know it's horse shit? Because Bush has no fucking idea what a caliphate is. At best, he used the term, "head dude."

Soldier vs. Ram

What happens when US soldiers get bored in Afghanistan...

Crikey!

Apparently, Steve Irwin finally bit it. Ironically, it was a sting ray that got him.

"Street legal" is really stretching it

There are car modifications, and then there are fucking car modifications.

Entertaining parts of this:

1. The guy built a fucking functional jet engine into the back of his VW beetle. This is the most obvious one, but it bears restating.
2. The engine came from a helicopter. Did he get the goddamn thing off eBay?!
3. The sunroof and two side windows constitute the intake.
4. There is now a gauge in his car titled, "Turbine Inlet Temperature."
5. Did I mention it's a jet engine embedded in the back of a VW beetle?
6. The California DMV can't figure out what to charge him with.
7. The Batmobile now looks like a goddamn pink Hyundai.
8. The California DMV is so stymied that they are asking the federal government if it constitutes a threat to national security.
9. That Osama bin Laden's eBay alias would be "b_laden13".

Surprise: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both suck

Now I'm just more pissed at all the relevent players involved for not having the goddamn sense to settle on a single standard. Fuck 'em. Let them eat their huge R&D budgets that they've now squandered by being greedy fucktards. I'm not buying shit until they settle on a single next-gen format.

Our government is full of idiots

Seriously, what the fuck do they expect to find by doing this? College students funneling aid to terrorist organizations?

Video cards 1, DVD players 0

Interesting article comparing modern video cards to retail DVD players. The result is that the video cards kick the DVD players' asses. The lesson? Don't spend a bazillion dollars on a fancy DVD player. If you really want the highest quality, hook up a PC to your tv!

Frustrating debate

I had a very frustrating experience listening to NPR on the way back from a doctor's appointment today. I ended up listening to the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (you know, the guy Incompetent McCronism used public money to hire a PI to investigate?), specifically today's broadcast. On it were Marsha Blackburn, party shill from the enlightened state of Tennessee, and Marty Meehan, Democrat of Massachusetts and foe of coherent thought.

Your first inclination might be to become angry at the idiotic drivel spewing from Blackburn's mouth. But, frankly, I'm over that. The Republican party line is so predictable as to be boring at this point. The war's critics are unpatriotic. All the terrorists in the world jumped on a big happy bus and went to Iraq and forgot about harassing the American public for some reason. Etc. Whatever. It's stupid, and probably anyone listening to NPR knows it's stupid. It's a pointless exercise. Like being in the White House press corps.

What really frustrated me was the largely incoherent and ineffective rebuttal Meehan offered. This is really not that hard an argument to refute, and the fact that the Republicans rely on carefully staged events that involve stump speeches is a testament to this. If you can just get a Republican in a debate at all, you're 3/4 of the way to showing the world they're all idiots. And yet Meehan managed to screw up that last 1/4.

Welcome to being a Democrat. It's like having a gun set up on a tripod pointing at a guy who raped your sister and is now being held motionless by iron clamps, the trigger of which is wired to a giant red button labelled "WIN", and then watching in horror as the guy you picked to press the botton climbs up on the tripod, drapes himself upside-down in front of the gun with the muzzle pointed squarely between his eyes, and smugly stretches to try to press the button with his toe. It's really hard to figure out whether you hate the guy in clamps who raped your sister or the idiot trying to press the button with his toe more.

(aren't my analogies colorful?)

Anyway, the problem is that Meehan wasn't contradicting the complete horse shit Blackburn was saying. Blackburn would say something like, "Iraq is the central battlefield in the war on terror, and we have to win," and then Meehan would say something like, "Iraq isn't just about terror. It's about a flawed strategy." And then he would ramble on about tangential shit for the next few minutes (e.g., we haven't caught Osama, blah blah blah). What a fucktard. Look:

1. "isn't just about terror" is a terrible phrase. How about just "isn't about terrorism." Or even better, "has nothing to do with terrorism at all and never did." Is that so hard? How is it he managed to take a rather simple rebuttal point and make himself sound like a whiney 6-year-old?
2. Clearly terror and fear resonate with a significant part of the population. The Republicans have been feeding off it for 5 years now. Don't say "it's not about terrorism." You're just inviting Republicans to accuse you of being soft on defense. It's standing in front of a giant tunnel with a big red sign that says, "Turn Here To Make Me Look Like an Asshole!"

How about instead you say something like, "Look, this isn't about fighting terrorism versus not fighting terrorism. This is about fighting terrorism intelligently, as we want to, or fighting terrorism stupidly and ineffectively as the Republicans have been doing. Iraq has been plunged into a civil war that claims the lives of American soldiers every day while the terrorists make advances in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and elsewhere. This administration desperately needs you to believe that Iraq is part of the war on terrorism, because otherwise they might actually have to admit the magnitude of the mistake they've made, the resources they've squandered, and the lives they've sacrificed to their own ineptitude and arrogance. I want to support our troops by making sure they're put in a place where they can make the United States the most secure and by giving them the supplies and armor they need to do their jobs. I think will do far more good than repeating the same, tired talking points and rhetoric we've been hearing for the last 5 years. The lives of our soldiers and the security of the United States are more important to me than the hurt feelings of a few people in Washington."

See? Was that so hard?

Smartest cities in America

I'll thank you to note that the top three cities are the three main cities I've lived in in my life. The only logical conclusion is that people around me osmotically absorb my vast intelligence.

Ted Stevens is a crazy douchebag

More proof.

For fuck's sake, this isn't even a partisan issue. People on the right want this as much as the people on the left. What a fucking douchebag.

Once again, act surprised

...and the cavalcade of cronyism and incompetence continues!...

On Wikiality

...because it's this or do actual work that I need to finish before I leave. Pfft.

"Wikiality" really is a fantastic word, and Colbert deserves some kind of award for that (and, of course, "truthiness"). They are ingenious words not only because the concepts themselves are interesting but they so utterly capture the nature of the United States under Bush. I feel I may have made this observation before, but I can't help but note how utterly ironic that the neocon evangelical "the Bible is the Truth!" President is the one that turned reality itself into an exercise in relativity. In Bush's world, facts are utterly irrelevent. All that matters is what people _think_ the facts are. It is objectivity by majority vote. It is quintessential wikiality.

...which brings us to the subject at hand: my intense dislike for the phenomenon of Wikipedia. At core, it boils down to the fact that Wikipedia takes the worst part of democracy and pushes it to its logical extreme. Nobody seems to get that the "majority rules" part of democracy is not, in fact, its best feature but instead its _worst_. The reason that democracy is such a powerful tool is because it is one of the few forms of government that ensures that one's leaders are responsible to the governed. It just happens that the way this is accomplished is through majority voting. In some senses though, that particular aspect of democracy is merely a side effect. It is merely a means to the end of a responsible government, and a lot of times it's a downright shitty means. Mobs have a way of doing profoundly shitty things. Just ask your average black person in Alabama. The problem is that we just haven't come up with anything better, because every other system you can dream up allows a despot or aristocracy to rule with impunity. Doesn't humanity suck? Because people are so goddamn greedy and self-centered, we have to sacrifice expertise on the altar of responsiveness.

So, it is with deep frustration that I observe Wikipedia. Through the lense I just described, Wikipedia has the idea of populism and democracy utterly ass backwards. What is the responsibility that Wikipedia seeks through popular participation? Does it envision a cloistered academic elite that refuses to admit scientific fact for due to some kind of perverse and inscrutable self-interest?

If so, what horseshit. The academy is one of the few areas of life that hasn't been overwhelmingly tainted by politics, and it does and always has prided itself on its subservience to evidence. Granted, scientists do have a vested interest in hanging on to their own pet research, but the rest of the scientific community has a vested interest in advancing the field even if that means stepping on some egos along the way. It is the one area where you _don't_ have to sacrifice expertise to responsiveness. And yet, Wikipedia righteously does so anyway. Hooray!

Moreover, the modern world of science (and by science, I mean the general practice of evidence-substantiated research, a broad definition meant to include a much wider range of topics than the purely hard sciences) is so complicated that we are often beyond the point where amateurs can contribute meaningfully or, more importantly, reliably. In other words, we _need_ experts, and we need to know that scientific knowledge is coming from experts.

...which brings us back to Wikipedia. At its very core, Wikipedia shuns the idea of experts. It's quintessential thesis is that there are no experts and that all voices are equal. And when it comes to human knowledge, that idea should absolutely terrify you. And anger you.

Now, I will admit that an advantage of Wikipedia is that it serves the "long tail" quite well, i.e., you tend to be able to find very obscure topics in Wikipedia that it is very difficult to find elsewhere. I agree that this is a good thing. But achieving that long tail effect shouldn't sacrifice expertise.

So have an internet repository of knowledge. But don't let the voices of the idiot masses drown out the minority of experts.

Yeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaawww!!!

This seems like a bad idea. It especially seems like a bad idea while smoking. And with a redneck accent.

Great quote

If you trust Google more than your doctor than maybe it's time to switch doctors.
- Jadelr and Cristina Cordova

Quoted on Google, no less. :)

Wikipedia sucks, part 937

I really should start a collection of articles on how relying on Wikipedia as a reliable source of information is, well, retarded.

Homosexual agenda

Hehehehe...I love Mac Hall.

No one is buying Microsoft

I agree with the sentiment of the ZDNET op-ed: somebody's been smoking something at the Financial Times.

Spiritual Technology

This shit pisses me off. Not only is it a bunch of pseudo-science new-age horse shit, it's associated with the University of Washington, so I now take it personally. I hope the fact that this guy is a "senior advisor" doesn't mean Washington State tax dollars are supporting his ass.

Penny Arcade game!

*disturbingly girly squeal of delight*

The 62% violent pac-man

I'm going to have to side with the game reviewer over the Harvard PhD in this one. Specifically, I agree with the statement that the study, which is now notorious for rating Pac-Man as 62% violent, while an interesting piece of research and potentially useful as a basis for other kinds of quantitative research, should never in a million years be used as a basis of policy or a metric in rating games. "Violence" is far too vague and subjective a concept to legalistically quantify by absurd metrics like "number of deaths", "deaths per minute," etc. If you're hellbent on providing a violence rating for a game, you have to have reviewers review it and score it. No stupid rules, no pointless micro-metrics, just a simple, "On a scale from 1 to 10, how violent is this game?" Get enough people to score it like that and you have a rough idea of how violent other people will perceive it to be.

Now, if you can highly correlate those legalistic micro-metrics to the essentially subjective metrics, fantastic. Go for it. But until you do, they have no business in policy.

"Oops"?

Yes, I'm sure it was just an accident.

Goddamn turncoat

This kid needs to be shot. Then beaten. Then shot again.

Never have children

...or they will do this to you.

Don't download this song

Good old Weird Al...

Also, his new album is called, "Straight Outta Lynnwood." That's...that's fantastic.

Bye Bye F-4

F-4 versus wall. Hint: the wall wins.

In the same vein, truck versus pole. Similar result. I can't help but wonder if you couldn't rig the truck to catapult a bomb on impact though, making this exercise somewhat moot?

Fuck Lieberman. Again.

Much as Germans love David Hasselhoff, Republicans love Lieberman.

Why do I feel like I'm in that scene in Star Wars where Annakin discovers Palpatine is a Sith Lord? (and yes, I just used a Star Wars analogy to describe a political situation. Fuck off.)

Judge sacked for consulting imaginary dwarves

I think I'll just let this BBC ditty speak for itself...

Of bargains...

Fucking Avis. I had a reservation with them for my 3 day upcoming trip to Seattle, when I noticed that for some reason (presumably idiocy) I had only booked the car for two days. When I went to change the reservation, they tried to charge me $150 including taxes for 3 days. Are you shitting me? Fuck that.

So, I try HotWire. I enter in my information, dates, etc. Final cost: $75. That sounds like a lot less than $150. So, I buy it. Now, the way that HotWire works is that you don't know who you're contracting with until you buy. Guess who the company turned out to be once I bought? Avis. Fuckers. Why couldn't your dumb asses just give me the reasonable rate out of the gate?

I realized this was part of an imminent change in my purchasing habit. When you're on a corporate expense account, you generally don't care who you buy from or how much it costs so long as it's covered by the company. Mostly you care about the accrual of rewards programs. So, at Microsoft, I used United and Avis almost exclusively. I racked up a fuck-ton of miles on United, and I got a discount on Avis and a member of Avis Preferred, which allowed me to go straight to my car.

But, I've realized that the reward programs aren't actually worth it when you're paying with your own money. United, I've noticed, is consistently higher priced than other airlines. From New York to San Francisco, they are consistently $200 more expensive than others (and incidentally, most corporate travel policies allow you to choose any flight within $200 of the lowest fare...coincidence?). So you know what? Fuck 'em. Sure, it's nice to have the miles to use for upgrading and such, but the money you save by taking the lowest-cost flights, car rentals, etc. more than makes up for the miles you don't accrue. Hell, in the New York case, just not taking that one flight is enough to pay for another ticket! Fuckers.

So, I'm officially becoming a bargain hunter. I cancelled my Mileage Plus Visa last December as I realized, far too late for my own comfort, that a $50-$80 annual fee doesn't even come close to being worth the miles accrued, even if I buy everything with my card. Instead, I got a Fidelity MasterCard with 1.75% cash back that goes into my Fidelity Core account, which then begins to earn interest. Much better deal. And as of my last few trips, I take whichever airline is cheapest. Sure, I may pay more to take a non-stop, but I'm not taking United just because they're United any more. It will hurt me to go from being Premier Executive ("1P" in the flyertalk lingo) to being a General Member peon (not even Premier/2P!), but I'll save money.

P.S. I'm a grad student in just over two weeks. Somebody buy me dinner.

Yay Google-bashing!

Or, more specifically, yay Google-as-a-profit-generating-business bashing.

Another idiotic Internet quiz

...but one after my own heart.

You scored as Commander William Adama. You have risen to your position by being damn good at what you do. Not only that, you have the deepest respect for the people under your command. You may be a little grumpy and unapproachable, but every commander needs to distance himself. Shame that you apply that to your children too. Commander William Adama 69% CPO Galen Tyrol 63% Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo) 63% Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer) 50% Tom Zarek 44% Number 6 44% President Laura Roslin 38% Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) 38% Dr Gaius Baltar 31% Col. Saul Tigh 19% What New Battlestar Galactica character are you? created with QuizFarm.com